


tonight i saw the magic in your eyes

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, F/F, Kidnapping, Morally Ambiguous Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 03:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5191028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I can see you looking, dear,” says the Queen of the Underworld, and Emma snaps back in her seat, unsettled.</em>
</p><p><em>“I wasn’t</em> looking<em>,” she retorts. Regina smirks. Emma’s beginning to understand how she can get under the other gods’ skin so easily. There’s something about her, an aura of coiled danger, that is telling Emma to run far, far away. Unfortunately, being the goddess of spring (and fertility, but she</em> really <em>doesn't like to talk about that one) has not entirely equipped her for getting out of situations like being kidnapped by her mother’s estranged sister.</em></p><p>the greek goddess au you never knew you needed</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this work was inspired by [this art](http://reginasblazers.tumblr.com/post/130787663016/swan-queen-mythology-the-myth-of-persephone/) by [reginasblazers](http://reginasblazers.tumblr.com/)

_now I know your years were never wasted,_  
_tonight I saw the magic in your eyes._  
-  
persephone // wishbone ash

In retrospect, Emma thinks she should have known better than to think any idea of Snow’s was a good one. But she had taken one look at her mother’s tearful, pleading gaze and hadn’t had the heart to say no to a flower-gathering expedition with the Oceanids. She’s spent so long resenting her mother, her beautiful, pure mother, goddess of the harvest and the earth, who hid her away from the other gods long ago to preserve the light of her spirit. She’d hoped, naively perhaps, that this outing could be the beginning of a new chapter of their lives. She’d hoped it would make Snow forgive her once and for all.

As she’s carried swiftly away by the carriage of the goddess of the Underworld, Emma desperately wishes she was better at saying no.

\--

Her captor is quieter than she would have expected, given her reputation. Regina, Queen of the Underworld, The Unseen One--she has many names, but all are accompanied by tales of her destruction. The mortals call her the Evil Queen, and sneaking a glimpse of her face, Emma can understand why; the proud curve of Regina’s jaw sends a tiny frisson of fear up her spine. This is the woman who rules the souls of the dead with an iron fist, who graces them with the paradise of Elysium and curses them to the depths of Tartarus. They say she has defeated every hero that has dared to invade her realm. They say she draws her power from the darkness and can bleed the hearts of any living being that crosses her path. They say she takes a different lover every night.

“I can see you looking, dear,” says the Queen of the Underworld, and Emma snaps back in her seat, unsettled.

“I wasn’t _looking_ ,” she retorts. Regina smirks. Emma’s beginning to understand how she can get under the other gods’ skin so easily. There’s something about her, an aura of coiled danger, that is telling Emma to run far, far away. Unfortunately, being the goddess of spring (and fertility, but she _really_ doesn't like to talk about that one) has not entirely equipped her for getting out of situations like being kidnapped by her mother’s estranged sister. “Maybe I’m just trying to figure out why in Hades you’re kidnapping me.”

Regina laughs, delighted. “Kidnapping! My, my, we are a touchy one, aren’t we?”

“What would you have me call it, O Dark Queen?” snaps Emma. “You abduct me from the fields of Crete with no explanation and sweep me off in your carriage--what else could this be? My mother is probably rushing to Rumpelstiltskin at this moment to plead for my return.” 

She feels a vague sense of satisfaction that Snow will have to beg for help in getting her back after keeping the gods away from her for so long. She’d probably even be enjoying this little adventure if it weren’t for the thought of what she had left behind in the forest. _Henry ___, her heart beats, _Henry, Henry, Henry ___. Her sweet boy and most precious secret.

__Regina is quiet for a moment, subdued. “I thought you would have been warned of my arrival,” she concedes._ _

__“Warned by who?” laughs Emma. This goddess is a mystery to her, a mystery wrapped in a (rather flattering) cloak of black feathers that wavers around the edges when she tries to fix it in her gaze. She is undeniably dangerous, but she hasn’t made any moves toward violence or even tried touching Emma save keeping her constrained within the carriage._ _

__“Why, Rumple, of course,” Regina says lightly. “He is the one who promised you as my bride, after all.”_ _

__\--_ _

__Emma’s silent for the remainder of the journey above ground. She doesn’t want to believe the queen’s words, but a nagging voice in the back of her head tells her that they are all too possible. Rumpelstiltskin has been advocating her courtship for eons (“It’s ridiculous for the goddess of fertility to bear no children, dearie,” he’d whispered to her one day in passing, and her skin had crawled and crawled until she had fled into the forest and listened to the whispers of the dryads) and no one knows about Henry’s existence._ _

__Though she knows this development means the God of Gold has not become aware of the extent of her relationship with Bae, she cannot bring herself to be grateful. If this new manipulation turns out anything like the others...she shudders at the thought. Hook had been part of the reason Snow had finally exiled her to the woods, so it seems fitting that her current suitor had attacked her the moment she emerged from them._ _

__She’s lost in thought until the ground drops out from beneath her, and she clutches the sides of her seat as the carriage descends into a furrow in the ground. Before them lies the Acheron, the water calm and opaque. If she squints, she can make out what must be Charon’s silhouette drifting leisurely toward them. She writhes in her invisible bonds._ _

__“I’m afraid that won’t do much good, my dear,” says Regina._ _

__“Okay, look, I get that Rumplestiltskin promised me to you and all, but couldn’t we just figure this out like--like rational immortal beings?” Emma suggests. “Like, maybe one day you bring me flowers, the next we have a nice picnic of nectar and ambrosia, and _then_ you casually bring up the fact that my body has been promised to you by the most powerful being in the universe.”_ _

__Regina smiles, which--wow, her whole face transforms into something more alluring than dangerous; Emma is disarmed for a moment by the openness of her expression. “I can’t leave the underworld for long periods of time,” she admits. She’s staring into Emma’s face, searching for something._ _

__“And?”_ _

__Regina’s expression snaps shut again. “And I have a reputation to uphold, dear. Now do try and stay quiet on the boat ride, won’t you? It would be a terrible shame to disturb the eternal rest of the dead.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> andddd that's the first chapter! i wanted to do a short little fic but my plot bunnies kinda ran away from me, so stay tuned for more chapters (and they'll be longer, i promise).


	2. Chapter 2

The underworld is _breathtaking_. Emma’s never seen anything like it. It’s just her and Regina and the silent Charon in the tiny boat, and they glide past a three-headed dog and a cackling harpy and Emma doesn’t quite know what to make of it all.

To her left, on the distant horizon, she can make out the Fields of Punishment; the pain on the faces of the dead is enough to make her cringe. A grove of apple trees borders the roiling mass of bodies, and she knows without being told that the apples are cursed to taste like ash and never provide sustenance, that it’s a torturous life sentence meant for those who have sinned. _Regina could make anyone behave themselves just by showing them this_ , she thinks inanely, and averts her eyes.

On her right side lies Elysium, where heroes frolic in the sun. The juxtaposition of the two regions is startling. While the darkness of the Fields pervades the region around their walls, Elysium emits a sheen of something--if she had to name it, she would say _goodness_ , pure and unadulterated--that illuminates all within its bounds. Pink flowers grow along the banks of a burbling river, and she can make out several well-built men in armor sparring on a hill, the clashes of their swords ringing above their muted groans.

When she looks straight ahead, Emma catches a glimpse of the Asphodel Meadows and cranes her head, intrigued. She’s always thought that she’d be a Meadows kind of girl (if she wasn’t immortal, that is). She’s not a _hero_ , not _good_ the way her parents are, even if they like to hold her up as some kind of paragon of virtue. But she likes to think she could make it into Asphodel, that the darkness in her life could somehow be offset by all the good things she’s done and render her utterly neutral. It doesn’t seem so terrible, either, just intensely boring, and she’s almost used to that after so many centuries in the forest with only Henry for company.

“What happens when they run out of space?” Emma wonders aloud. “When there’s no more room in this realm for all the dead?”

She turns to find Regina observing her curiously. “The realm expands, I suppose, or they go somewhere else,” the queen says dismissively. “This land provides for itself.”

“What do you do, then?”

She smiles wryly. “A bit of this and that. Sentencing mortals to eternal torture, ensuring no one leaves my domain, requesting blushing virgin brides. Standard fare for evil goddesses of the underworld, I’d imagine.”

“Oh,” Emma responds, letting out a breath. With the novelty of a new world laid out before her, she’d forgotten for a moment why she was here. “And what do you intend to do with these blushing virgin brides, in general?” (She should probably, at some point in time, mention that she’s not a virgin.)

“I usually prefer to lock them up and force them to bear my children,” Regina says dryly, and cackles at the look on Emma’s face. “I’m only joking, dear. I’ve never done this before.”

“So then why now? Why me?”

Regina thinks for a moment. “I noticed you on one of my excursions into the forests at the base of Olympus. I suppose I found you...satisfactory in most respects.”

Emma is flummoxed. “ _Satisfactory_? You saw me walking around in the forest and--and you thought I was _satisfactory_ and you asked for me as your bride?” Her voice is creeping up into embarrassingly high octaves. She can feel Charon’s disapproval radiating from his turned back like it’s a tangible thing.

“Well, I am rather lonely down here,” Regina replies, “and I need someone to help me manage the kingdom. You seemed relatively intelligent, cynical enough that talking to you wouldn’t give me a toothache, and willing to make ridiculous sacrifices if you believed in a cause.”

“I am simply _blown away_ by your high praise,” says Emma, but she’s taken aback at how much of her Regina has seen and understood. More than Bae had, almost, and she’d had a _child_ with him.

“I mostly wanted to spite your mother,” Regina says, and the moment is lost. 

\--

They arrive at Regina’s castle, and Emma is impressed despite herself. The obsidian towers emerging from behind a dark facade lend the palace a sinister air that is undoubtedly intentional. Precious jewels--garnets, diamonds, opals, and more she can’t name--line the perimeter of the base, and the silver doors are barred shut and guarded by an enormous, harpy-like being. 

“My half-sister, Zelena,” says Regina, seeing where she’s looking. Emma thinks she’s joking until she turns to look at her and finds her face entirely composed. “She was like that when I found her,” Regina adds in response to her unasked question. “I’m not _quite_ that evil.”

Emma follows her into the vaunted halls of the castle. The inside is almost as dark as the exterior, though the front hall is filled with mirrors of every size and shape that reflect the flickering candlelight back into her face. She looks pale, she realizes; the shock of her abduction hasn’t quite worn off yet, and she’s still uneasy about what Regina’s plans for her are. Jokes about forced childbirth aside, she _was_ promised to Regina in marriage, and she feels the pit in the bottom of her stomach harden at the thought of what that might entail. Emma’s no blushing bride, but she will not accept being forced to consummate a union she hasn’t even agreed to, no matter how mighty the deity behind the match may be.

“Graham will show you to your room,” comes Regina’s voice, interrupting her thoughts. Emma realizes she’s been staring at herself in a particularly ornate mirror for several minutes and blushes furiously. She pivots to find a seemingly healthy, mortal man by her side.

“Is he--”

“Dead?” Regina snickers. “Quite.”

“Right,” says Emma, mollified. She supposes no living mortal could survive down here for more than a few weeks, but it’s disconcerting to be standing next to someone who is, by all appearances, a man. She hasn’t had much contact with humans (unlike some of the other gods--Rumpelstiltskin, in particular, has always had an affinity for mortal women) aside from watching their petty squabbles at a distance.

She begins to follow Graham down a long corridor but stops short, struck by a passing thought. “You still haven’t said what you’re going to do with me.”

Regina studies her. “You’re free to roam wherever you’d like, dear. I won’t stop you. Though you might want to avoid the dungeons--there are some _very_ nasty characters down there. As for other matters, well,” and she pauses, a knowing look in her gaze, “I will not force you to do anything you don’t wish to. I swear it on the River Styx.”

Well, at least there’s that.

\--

When Emma finally collapses on the (admittedly luxurious) bed in her chambers, she allows herself to think, finally, of Henry. Henry, who will worry when she doesn’t return today, who loves her unconditionally despite her many faults, who knows to keep out of sight and to never speak of his father. Henry, who has never interacted with another soul besides her and occasionally Red, because to do so would reveal the secret she has kept from her mother for centuries--that Snow’s beloved, innocent daughter gave away her precious virginity long ago, and to _Rumpelstiltskin’s_ very own son. 

Her boy is on his own now, and she can’t help but wonder when she will be able to return to him. There’s no way she can tell Regina--the queen would almost certainly use the information to blackmail her, and Emma has no intention of giving her more power than she already holds. For now, Henry will be safe in Red’s care, and Emma will just have to focus on getting back to him.

For his sake (and hers), she hopes it will be soon.

\--

Regina has said she can roam wherever she’d like, and so Emma roams. She strolls aimlessly along the banks of the Cocytus until the faint moans emerging from its depths begin to annoy her. She walks through the souls of the dead toward the distant horizon and manages to spot the shadowy embers of what must be Tartarus. She visits the Isles of the Blessed and stays for a few minutes before the artificial scent of spiced herbs sets her teeth on edge.

And then she goes to the dungeons, because she’s never been very good at following directions.

The queen’s personal prison looks exactly as she would have expected it to: dark and musty, with cobwebs lingering on stone walls and shifting shadows forming a pattern on the cold floor. The clank of chains echoes in the otherwise oppressive silence, and Emma can barely discern the end of the rows of cells--Regina must have made hundreds of enemies to be able to fill them all. She wonders idly what crimes merit imprisonment in this particular hellhole, rather than standard punishments in the greater underworld.

She presses forward (because in addition to spring and growth, bad ideas are kind of her thing) until she reaches the first cage. There’s a vaguely human-looking form curled up in the corner of the small room, and she steps closer to see what type of monster it is.

The creature leaps from its position on the floor and grabs her by the throat before she has time to react. Choking, Emma scrabbles uselessly at its forearms, cursing with what little breath she has left. She reaches for its eyes and scratches the skin she finds there, which only serves to enrage it enough to tighten its grip on her neck, and--that _hurts_. She knows, logically, that she cannot die, that her immortality means she doesn’t actually _need_ air or food or water, but being put in a chokehold is still an extremely uncomfortable sensation.

“Stop struggling,” her captor says tersely. With a few token kicks, Emma obeys. She’s obviously not getting out of this situation without going along with what he wants, at least for the moment. “If I let you go, will you behave?” he asks. She nods, mute, and the hands release her.

She’s halfway to the door before he calls after her. “I’m disappointed in you, Swan,” he shouts, his voice ringing down the hall, and she stops short. Swan is one of the mortals’ nicknames for her, and turning slowly on her heel, she can finally understand why he’s used it; standing before her is what is unmistakably a seer. With the dark circles under his eyes and the stubble around his jaw, he looks at home in the gloom of the prison, but his fevered breathing belies the way he nonchalantly leans against the bars.

“How do you know who I am?” Emma asks. 

He grins wildly. “I know everyone, Emma. Especially those who will become important.”

Emma’s confused. “How am I important? Who _are_ you?”

He beckons her closer. Reluctantly, she approaches his cell for the second time, making sure to remain a safe distance away. Now that she can inspect him more closely, she thinks he must be a bit mad; his face contorts every few seconds, and his eyes have a strangely murky quality to them. “Jefferson,” he says. “I’m Jefferson. The _queen_ calls me the Mad Hatter, though,” and he gestures behind him to a jumbled pile of hats of every shape and size. His expression has twisted in rage at the mention of Regina’s name, and Emma can feel the fury emanating from him in thick waves, his malice boiling to the surface and threatening to engulf her.

“So she’s the one who trapped you in here,” Emma says cautiously.

“Of course,” Jefferson hisses. “Of course she did, because she’s _evil_ , because she’ll take everything you love and turn it to ash. You’ll see. You’ll see.” He’s almost frothing at the mouth, shaking in fear and anger and guilt and blame. “You can’t trust her. You can’t!”

“Okay,” says Emma placatingly. She’s already regretting coming to talk to him, and the soles of her feet itch with the desire to _move_ , to escape back to the surface. She turns to go.

“Has she offered you anything to eat yet?” Jefferson asks. She’s thrown by the non sequitur, but her silence seems to be enough of an answer for him. “I thought as much. If the Queen of the Underworld offers you food or drink, _Emma_ (and her name is a reverent whisper drawn from his lips), you must not eat it. Do you understand? She’s leading you into a trap, and you won’t see it until you’re caught like a fly in her web. I _see_ things in my hats, you know. I’ve seen it. If you eat anything from the underworld, you’ll be stuck here forever.”

“I...okay,” Emma responds, slightly bewildered. “I won’t eat her food.” She’s already backing toward the entrance to the dungeon, entirely prepared for this encounter to be over.

“ _You have to remember_ ,” Jefferson spits behind her, and she flees.

\--

By the time she emerges from below the castle, the light has dimmed enough that she knows it would be night above ground. She feels entirely too conspicuous, still shaken by her brush with Jefferson and his foreboding omens. Emma’s not usually one to believe in fate, but she’s not idiotic enough to ignore a seer, either; though their predictions are usually ambiguous and easily misunderstood, they are almost never wrong. And “taking everything she loves and turning it to ash” doesn’t sound like there’s much room for interpretation.

She sets off toward her chambers before quickly realizing that she is very, very lost. Every corridor in the palace looks identical ( _probably meant to entrap unwelcome visitors_ , Emma thinks darkly), and with each turn she takes she becomes more and more disoriented. Finally, she stumbles upon a door that looks vaguely familiar--at first she thinks it will be locked, but the handle gives way easily under her grip and she steps into the room.

It must be the armory, though Emma is at a loss as to what need for weapons Regina could possible have with all the power she possesses. Curved swords are hung at various heights on the walls, their blades marred by detailed symbols and their pommels embedded with gems the size of birds’ eggs. The room is interspersed with shining suits of armor, and Emma has the uncomfortable sense that they would be ready to spring into action as soon as given the command. The shelves closest to her are filled with various smaller pieces that spark with light in her peripheral vision; she takes hold of a heavy gauntlet and almost falls over as it seems to pull her toward the doorway.

“Whatever are you doing?” comes Regina’s voice from the hall, and Emma does drop the gauntlet then, swearing as it crashes to the floor.

“You said I could roam,” she responds weakly as Regina sweeps into the room.

Regina purses her lips. “Well, perhaps I wasn’t expecting you to _manhandle_ all of my magical objects. Where have you been all day, anyway?”

Emma gestures awkwardly in the direction of the outdoors (she thinks, anyway). “You know. Out and about. Roaming.”

“Of course,” Regina says, in a way that implies she knows exactly what Emma’s been up to. “And how did you find your new kingdom, my lady?”

“It’s not bad,” Emma says airily (she’s trying to gain the upper hand in the conversation, but suspects she just sounds stupid). “Your harpies need some discipline, and Charon’s kind of an asshole to the dead that come over without coins in their mouths, but otherwise the place seems to be running smoothly.”

“Oh,” says Regina. She seems to be at a loss for words, and Emma thinks of how _seen_ she had felt after Regina had described her and wonders if Regina’s never experienced that either, never had someone take an actual interest in her realm and its affairs. She can understand, now, how lonely it would be down here, with only the drifting shades of the dead as company. She can almost understand why Regina would feel the need to secure a bride in a way that wouldn’t allow for rejection--after seeing the desolation of this land, who would want to live in it forever? (not that she’s condoning the queen’s behavior, because really, who _kidnaps_ the person they want to spend their eternal life with? That’s pretty messed up, in her opinion. But.)

“Your castle could also use some directional signage,” Emma adds, and Regina laughs, the sound low and throaty enough to send a surge of heat through her lower belly, and-- _gods_ , she really doesn’t need this right now on top of everything else.

“I can l show you to your room, if you’d like,” the queen offers, and Emma has no choice but to nod in acquiescence. She’s drawn to this goddess in a way she doesn’t understand, and the more she tries to resist the more she is pulled into her wake. She wants to learn about Regina, about what drove her to this shadowy realm and what has left her so desperate for companionship. 

She’d also really like to stop being attracted to her, but if she keeps wearing such skintight clothes Emma is self-aware enough to know that it’s a lost cause.

They arrive at her chambers quickly enough, and Regina holds open the door to let her pass. This move serves the additional purpose of forcing her to squeeze between the door frame and the queen, and they’re so close that for a moment Emma stares at the scar on Regina’s upper lip and forgets how to breathe. 

Regina coughs, once, and shifts to the side to allow her to enter. “I’ll come for you in the morning,” she says brusquely, and strides off the way they had come, heels clacking against the floor.

“Okay,” Emma says faintly, and slams the door behind her before collapsing onto the bed. She’s exhausted, drained by her wanderings and worries, and the second her head falls onto the pillow she drifts into a deep sleep, too tired to even remove her shoes.

Her dreams are filled with Henry, as they always are, but tonight, there’s a new figure as well--a black-cloaked silhouette lingering on the outskirts of the image that she can’t quite fix in her gaze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to my beta [MurderouslyAdorkable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderouslyAdorkable/pseuds/MurderouslyAdorkable/) for your help with this chapter. stay tuned for more, folks.


	3. Chapter 3

She’s jolted out of bed by a firm knock, Regina’s voice muted behind the wooden door. “Are you awake, dear?”

Emma groans in response. “I am now,” she says. She can almost hear Regina’s smug smile from the other side. The goddess of the underworld is apparently a morning person.

“There are clothes for you in the wardrobe on your right,” says Regina. “I’ll be in the main hall--if you think you can make it there on your own, that is.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Emma grumbles as she swings her legs onto the floor. She walks to the wardrobe and opens the first drawer to find several robes that all look like they’ll fit her perfectly; she holds them up to check, and--yep, they’re tailored exactly to her curves, which is simultaneously fascinating and creepy. She wonders if Regina judged her measurements on sight or if the robes have been enchanted to fit the wearer regardless of size, and finds that she almost prefers the first theory.

Dressed, she heads down to the entryway of the castle where Regina is waiting for her, reigning supreme from a chair at the head of the banquet table. A feast is laid out before the queen, piles of ambrosia and large jugs of nectar scattered throughout the table, and Emma feels her mouth water at the sight before remembering Jefferson’s warning.

“How did you sleep?” Regina asks, taking a sip of nectar and wiping the the remainder from the corner of her mouth with admirable grace.

“Fine,” Emma says shortly. The presence of food is sending up warning flags in her mind, and she’s wary of whatever trick Regina is currently trying to pull (though she has to admit, it does smell amazing).

“Have a seat.” Regina gestures to the place beside her with a wide smile. Emma sits, stiffly, and Regina pushes a plate filled with ambrosia toward her. “Eat.”

“No, thanks,” Emma says, sliding the plate back toward her. She meets Regina’s knowing eyes with defiance, leaning back in her chair. The queen’s gaze hardens.

“You really should eat something, Emma.”

“Not hungry.” Emma skids her chair back and folds her arms over her chest (but in an extremely mature way, because she is hundreds of centuries old and is a sophisticated, dignified deity--or at least that’s what she reminds herself of whenever she’s faced with Regina’s perfect composure). She’s suddenly very glad for her visit to the dungeon yesterday, because the more Regina pushes, the more sure she is that Jefferson had spoken the truth. The queen must be trying to prevent her from leaving, a sentiment that Emma can understand but really, really does not appreciate.

It’s clear Regina knows she knows, too, because she smirks and sits back in her own chair. “Very well,” she says. “If you won’t eat, you can at least tell me what your plans are for the day.”

Emma squirms under her scrutiny. “I hadn’t really gotten around to thinking about it,” she says. She had (briefly) considered an escape attempt, but had come to the conclusion that Regina is so much more powerful than her it would be useless to try. She’d also realized that she’s not completely sure she actually _wants_ to leave, at least not for forever. It’s a strange feeling, because Emma values her independence like nothing else and she doesn’t know how to deal with not wanting to get away as soon as possible, with wanting to put down roots and _grow_ like the flowers she surrounds herself with. It’s never happened to her before, and she doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that it’s happening now. 

“I have a proposition for you,” says Regina, pursing her lips as she taps one of her fingernails idly on the corner of the table. “There are several...disciplinary matters I’m having some difficulty addressing. I wondered if you might like to come and help me put them to rest.” She’s looking down at the table, refusing to meet Emma’s eyes, and Emma is almost positive she’s expecting a refusal.

“Okay,” Emma shrugs. “Why not?” 

Regina looks up, something like hope flashing in her eyes, and Emma smiles tentatively. She tells herself she would have gotten bored otherwise, all alone in the castle with nothing to do except plan an escape that is doomed to fail and think about her son on his own in the forest. She tells herself that this is an opportunity to understand the geography of the underworld and find a way out, that she can learn about the queen and her realm to find weaknesses that can be exploited.

She tells herself these things, and she knows they’re all lies. She would do anything to see that flash of hope on Regina’s face again.

\--

The “disciplinary matter” Regina needs her help addressing turns out to be the three judges of the underworld--Maleficent, Cruella, and Ursula--who evidently act up often. This time, they’ve been devising sadistic punishments for souls who haven’t done much to deserve them, which strikes Emma as absurdly cruel even though Regina assures her the dead have all been returned to their rightful places in Asphodel. The queen doesn’t seem to be very bothered that her underlings have sentenced several mortals to crawl over hot coals for the rest of the afterlife simply for insulting their hair, and Emma doesn’t know whether to applaud her poise or worry about her apparent lack of morals.

Also, she’s ninety percent sure Maleficent has been Regina’s lover at some point in time, given the way she keeps eyeing her up and down. The thought makes her absurdly, unreasonably jealous.

“What seems to be the problem, ladies?” Regina drawls, stepping imperceptibly in front of Emma as she speaks. 

Maleficent--a half-drakon, judging by the scent of burning wood that lingers in the air around her--is the first to respond. “I know we’ve been a bit _bad_ , Regina darling, but the mortals have been _so_ rude as of late. And you know we have to have our fun down here, since there’s nothing...interesting enough to keep us occupied.” Her eyes rake over Regina’s form.

Emma snorts. She isn’t even _trying_ to be subtle, and she certainly doesn’t seem very apologetic, either.

The blonde’s gaze swivels to her. “Oh, hello,” she says, grinning, “you must be Regina’s new bride. I can see why she picked you.” She steps forward, whispering, “If you ever need someone to really _fire_ up the bedroom, just give me a call.”

“Mal,” Regina says warningly as Emma sputters.

“Sorry, love,” Mal says, flippant. “Won’t happen again. Being mean to the humans, I mean--I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist flirting with your wife, especially when she blushes so adorably.” Behind her, the other two snicker.

Emma tries to restore some semblance of authority to the situation. “Yes, well, it would be appreciated if you could avoid unnecessarily torturing mortals, in the future. So we don’t have to come back. And also, you know, ‘cause it’s kind of a terrible thing to do.” 

At this, they break into outright guffaws before Regina silences them with a dark look and a flick of her wrist. “Come along, Emma,” she says, and Emma turns to follow her back to the palace, Cruella’s barking laugh still ringing in her ears.

“Glad to see you’re settling in nicely!” Maleficent calls as a parting shot, and the corners of Regina’s mouth tighten as she she increases her pace slightly, leading Emma back to her fortress without another word.

\--

After that, things settle into something akin to a routine, though Emma will admit this only under extreme duress. (She _doesn’t_ do routine. Except that, apparently, she does.)

She becomes Regina’s deputy of sorts, patrolling the underworld for conflicts and resolving them when she can. It’s a surprisingly satisfying way to occupy her days, and although she thought she would feel smothered by essentially working under Regina she finds that they are an effective team (even if Regina likes to pretend she’s the one in charge). She’s doing something that feels _real_ for the first time in her life, making a difference for mortals that deserve one, and it feels good, tangible in a way that is deeply fulfilling. And for every dispute she breaks up, after every boundary is set to rights or injustice eliminated, she can see Regina soften toward her, see her open a little more. 

Of course, their shifting relationship doesn’t affect Regina’s constant attempts to get her to eat or drink something. It’s become a game between them, one that Emma enjoys almost as much as the continuous verbal sparring. Regina tries to catch her when she’s half asleep, or so buoyed up by victory over the problem of the day that she almost forgets herself, and Emma delights in pretending to take a bite before tossing the proffered dish over her shoulder and smirking victoriously at the queen. Every time, Regina simply smiles as if preparing for a new challenge, and Emma can’t help but wonder why she keeps trying. ( _You don’t have to trap me here to make me stay_ , she wants to say one day, but stops herself just in time. Regina, she thinks, tends to believe in actions rather than words, and the only way she can think to show her is by beating her at her own game, by holding out until she’ll have to believe.)

Emma isn’t arrogant enough to think that she’s changing Regina, that her presence is somehow making the queen better by osmosis, but the underworld seems lighter than it did when she arrived. She plants a garden of golden flowers on the hill behind the palace, and Regina huffs in frustration and mutters something goddesses who assume they can do anything because they’ve been blessed for their entire life and goes to water them three days later when Emma forgets. She finds a lyre player among the dead and gets him to serenade them one night, and she drags Regina out of her chair and twirls her until they’re both smiling, swaying slowly beneath the earth with their breath ghosting over each other’s skin.

Emma’s never known she could be so _happy_ , and no matter how many pointed remarks Ursula makes about something the mortals call “Stockholm Syndrome,” she doesn’t want this feeling to end. In the back of her mind, she knows it has to eventually; she misses Henry every second of every day, even though she knows he’s old enough now that by immortal standards, he’s virtually an adult. There will always be her draw to him and her guilt over abandoning her family standing in the way of anything with Regina, and it’s enough to pull her back every time she thinks about giving in to the wave of attraction between them.

The queen brings her news from above ground, sometimes. “Hook has impregnated yet another mortal woman,” she says one day, lip curling in disapproval, “and Belle is currently refusing to speak with Rumple so he’s transformed himself into a book in the hopes of winning her back.” There are other reports, too: two naiads kidnap a human man but blind him when he refuses to choose the fairer between them; the mortals are engaged in another silly little war and Charming has yet to pick a side to support.

There’s also the matter of her mother, who Regina updates her on rather gleefully. “She searched for you for two weeks before going to Rumple,” the queen informs her. “When she heard what had happened, she told him she would neglect all her duties until he pleaded with me for your return. Now she’s refusing to tend the earth and men are dying in spades. They say her despair blackens the fields and causes crops to tear themselves apart, that your father is trying to reason with her but she refuses to listen.” She picks idly at a perfectly shaped nail. “Bit of an overreaction, if you ask me.”

Objectively, Emma knows that it _is_ a bit of an overreaction, that most gods don’t concern themselves too much with the affairs of their children past a certain age. Her mother, however, has never adhered to that philosophy, and Emma feels sick at the thought of how desperate she must be to have gone to Rumpelstiltskin. She doesn’t know what Snow has done to incur so much of Regina’s wrath, but it must have been significant if her mother is this determined to get her back.

She can feel herself being torn between two worlds, guilty about her mother one minute and captivated by Regina the next. Each day seems to widen the fissure a little more, and Emma sometimes feels as though she’s waiting for the moment it bursts open and swallows her whole, until she disappears and this illusion of a perfect, fairy-tale life shatters into a thousand pieces.

She’s angry and she’s vulnerable and she hates herself for it, hates that she cares too much to just let herself _choose_ in a way she never has before.

\--

She goes out to the Isles of the Blessed one day to watch the dead laze about beneath the heavily laden fruit trees. It’s one of the times when she needs a break from enforcing Regina’s law, a time to sit and think without the distracting presence of the queen hovering over her shoulder. Even though there’s something about Elysium that sets her on edge, it’s the one place Regina won’t follow her--apparently, being good enough to make it into paradise means you’re exempt from interacting with any evil beings, so Regina’s own decree keeps her from visiting.

If anyone had told Emma she’d end up as the semi-willing prisoner of the Queen of the Underworld, she would have laughed in their faces and told them they obviously didn’t know her very well. Turns out, even goddesses can be surprised by the paths their lives take.

She picks out a place on the damp grass and sits with her back to the River Lethe. It’s a beautiful day here (just like every day), and the sun, however artificial, feels good on her face. She closes her eyes for a second and tilts her head back toward the sky (earth? she’s still confused about the geography of this place, to be honest) before hearing a faint buzzing from behind her, the sound growing steadily louder. Turning, Emma is confronted with what is possibly the ugliest creature she has ever seen: a blue-black daemon surrounded by flies that must be the source of the sound, with curved teeth that emit a powerful scent of rotting corpses. It pauses and sniffs the air as if searching for something.

“What--” Emma begins, but her words are lost in a shriek as the beast charges directly towards her. She crawls backwards, still confounded as to how a daemon could have found its way into Elysium and what possible reason it could have for being here, because Regina had _expressly told her that dark creatures could not enter the Isles, and why in Hades was it still chasing after her? Hadn’t it noticed she was a goddess_ \--

She briefly registers the sensation of falling before she feels herself being enveloped in a cold, smooth blanket and everything else fades away.

\--

When she wakes, it’s to freezing hands and screaming. In a distant part of her mind, she wonders if this is how mortals feel when they are revived after death; everything is blurry, as if she’s at the bottom of a pool trying to see to the surface, and sound is distorted in a way that causes her head to pound at the influx of noise.

She tries to sit up and groans in pain before opening her eyes. They adjust gradually to her surroundings until she can locate the source of the screaming: the daemon, its neck clasped firmly between Regina’s hands.

“You don’t _touch_ her,” she’s growling into its ear, “I’ve said time and time again, you stupid, idiotic creature, she is _off limits_. I’ll kill you for this just to make the lesson stick, and I’ll _enjoy it_.” She punctuates every sentence with a sharp squeeze.

Emma manages a faint croak, alarmed, and Regina whips around and races to her side before seeming to think better of it and halting a few feet away. The queen seems more tentative than she has since the initial days after her abduction, and Emma reaches her hand up to her face to check--no, she’s not horribly disfigured, which means there must be something else holding Regina back. “Um, hi?” she says, wincing as her throat burns with the effort.

“Hello,” Regina says tentatively. “Do you...do you know who I am?”

“Well, yeah,” says Emma. “I think it would be kind of hard to forget the goddess who _kidnapped_ me and has been keeping me captive for the past month. What’s going on, Regina?”

The queen exhales sharply, relief etched in every line of her face. “You...fell into the river,” she says hesitantly, and Emma suddenly understands.

“The River Lethe, you mean,” she sighs, and Regina nods in confirmation. “You thought I would forget you.”

“I thought you would forget _everything_ ,” Regina admits quietly, eyes trained on the ground beside her, and Emma hurts with the raw emotion contained in her voice. It’s one thing to believe Regina has come to care for her, at least a little bit--it’s another to see her in pieces over the possibility of Emma’s descent into oblivion, enraged in a way that implies true grief. Regina has _feelings_ for her, feelings that she’s concealed behind sarcasm and easy banter up until this point, and the realization shocks Emma to the core.

She laughs unsteadily. “I’m fine, Regina,” she says, “I promise,” and the queen lets out a broken sob before bringing her hand to her mouth in horror and turning away, shoulders rising in anticipation of whatever furious reaction she’s expecting from Emma. (Emma has none to give, because she can feel her own eyes brightening with tears as she mulls over the possibility of what could have happened and she’s kind of taken aback by how much Regina _cares_.)

“Hey,” she says abruptly, remembering, “aren’t you not allowed to be here?” She sits up and notices a group of the dead by the orchard, whispering to each other with increasing uneasiness as they point to her and Regina.

“I may have...broken my own rule,” Regina replies, shrugging. “There are more important things, after all.”

“Oh,” Emma says softly, and she stands and follows Regina back to the castle without speaking another word, water from her hair dripping down the back of her robe like a constant reminder of what has passed between them.

They reach her room and Regina is about to leave and Emma doesn’t know what comes over her, but she grabs the queen’s arm and pulls until they’re inches away from each other, frozen in the silence. “I could never forget you,” she whispers into the space between their mouths, and Regina meets her eyes and it’s hope and connection and everything Emma’s ever dreamed of.

Regina moves forward and Emma closes her eyes, waiting. Regina presses a light kiss to her forehead as her thumb strokes her knuckles, back and forth like she’s etching words permanently into her skin, and she whispers, “I can’t--” but her breath catches in her throat and she strides off down the hallway.

Emma stands in the doorway of her room, eyes still closed and fingers gently resting on her own lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [MurderouslyAdorkable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderouslyAdorkable/pseuds/MurderouslyAdorkable/) for your help and support.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note the rating change, folks! slightly dubious consent because kidnapping, so if that could be a trigger for you, please don't read.

They’re both on edge the next day, Regina’s barbs more cutting than they’ve ever been and Emma’s responses equally acerbic. She understands enough about Regina by now to know that she’s lashing out, fearful of having revealed too much, but Emma’s still stung by the rejection. It’s a twisted kind of role reversal, because Emma never thought _she’d_ be the one chasing _Regina_ and sometimes she wonders if this is all an elaborate trick, a reverse psychological hoax to make her a more willing bride. (Deep down, she knows it’s not. But she can’t think of any other reason for Regina to push her away, and it’s easier to come up with a hundred ridiculous answers than a realistic one that doesn’t hurt.)

So Emma walks for hours, enjoying the silence and the opportunity to immerse herself in her thoughts. She looks for places to sit and rest, but every location seems to remind her of Regina--there’s the rock where the queen had found her trying to sunbathe one day and laughed helplessly while informing her the underworld wasn’t conducive to tanning, and over there’s the tree Regina had struck down with a single hand motion before offering her an apple from its branches ( _honeycrisp_ , she’d said with a smirk, _nice and sweet_ ) only a week ago.

If she can’t escape thoughts of Regina, she figures she may as well just confront them, so Emma heads into the Vale of Mourning, where unhappy lovers pine in solitude. (Not that she’s one of them. It seems like a good place to think, that’s all.) She stretches out, the roots of the trees digging painfully into her back, and lets out a deep sigh.

“You okay?” comes a sympathetic voice off to her right, and she jerks up, wary of surprises after her recent attack.

“Who’s there?”

A woman steps out from behind a nearby tree, blood covering the side of her heavy-looking armor (it had taken Emma days to get used to the fact that the appearance of the dead didn’t change after their death, that there were souls walking around with bullet holes still in their chests and bruises around their necks.) “It’s just me,” she says, hands raised as if to demonstrate her innocence.

“And who are you?” Emma asks, still on alert but curious despite herself.

“Hua Mulan,” the woman introduces herself. “You must be Emma.”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“Of course. There are only two goddesses down here, and I’m pretty sure you’re not the Evil Queen,” the woman--Mulan--says with a small laugh. She’s beautiful, Emma can’t help but notice. If you ignore the blood and the fact that she’s literally a shade of her former self, she’s absolutely lovely.

“Yeah,” Emma says. “since I’m not a manipulative, confusing evil overlord?”

“I was going to say because you’re blonde, but that works too,” replies Mulan. 

Emma kicks the dirt. “She saved me,” she admits. She doesn’t know why she’s telling some random mortal about her problems, but it feels good to talk to someone other than Regina at last. She hadn’t realized how much she missed easy companionship, hadn’t noticed the hole that Bae and Red and Snow had left until now. Regina would probably call what she’s doing now pathetic, and the thought makes her grind her heel into the ground even harder.

Mulan shifts her head sympathetically, and Emma takes this as permission to continue. “And then I think she was going to kiss me--I _wanted_ her to kiss me--and she just walked away.”

There’s a comfortable silence, and then: “I loved a goddess, once,” Mulan says suddenly, the words bursting out of her like she’s surprised even herself, and Emma blinks. Of all the responses to her admission of attraction toward the widely hated ruler of the dead, she hadn’t expected that one. “I died to protect her.”

Emma feels her gaze drift down to the dark stain on Mulan’s side. She can’t help but wonder what dying would be like, how it would feel to confront fate in a way that she’ll never have to.

“I don’t regret it, though,” says Mulan, eyes alight with sincerity. “Even though she never returned my feelings, even though I knew it would be the end, I would do it again in a heartbeat. _That’s_ what love is, Emma.”

“Whoa,” Emma laughs nervously, “who said anything about _love_? That’s not...Regina and I aren’t like that. It’s just mutual attraction.”

Mulan watches her for a moment and then smiles wistfully. “Talk to her,” she says. “You’ll figure it out,” and she disappears into the trees without looking back.

Emma huffs out another sigh and looks down to her foot, which has produced a ditch twice the size of her head in the rough dirt. “ _Fuck_ ,” she hisses, because sometimes only mortal swears can aptly describe a situation, and she clenches her fists and stands to begin the long walk back to the castle.

\--

She’s calmer by the time she reaches the doors, mellowed by fatigue and her conversation with Mulan, but she can’t say the same for Regina. The queen’s been waiting for her in the main hall, and her face is creased with anger and something else Emma thinks might be concern.

“Where have you _been_?” she seethes, hands twisting by her sides. “You ignorant goddess, I would have thought you would notice how _dangerous_ this place is after a daemon had attacked you, but apparently I was wrong.”

“Sorry,” Emma snaps, because how is it _Regina_ who has the right to get angry in this situation? “Needed some time alone to think.”

“And you couldn’t have told someone where you were going? You had to run off and play the hero and--”

“Regina,” Emma says, and the queen falls silent. Emma looks her over, and her righteous indignance dissolves. “I’m sorry, okay? I should have told you I was leaving. I get that you’re worried after what happened yesterday, I do. But _you_ rejected _me_. So I really don’t think you need to make this big show of worrying every time I leave your sight.”

Regina’s silent for a moment, and Emma can see her nails leaving tiny white crescents in the palms of her hands. “Gods,” she says roughly, “you can be so _obtuse_.” And she crosses the distance between them and grabs Emma’s face and they’re kissing, pressed against each other as the candlelight makes shadows dance over their skin.

Emma hasn’t kissed that many people in her lifetime. There was Bae, who was nice and kind and said all the right things, and there was Hook, who took without asking, and there was Red, one night when they’d both had way too much wine. There’s never been anything like this. It feels like falling, like stars exploding in her head and sparks igniting in her bones. It feels like coming home for the first time. It feels like they’ve been hurtling toward this point forever, like their bodies have always known each other and their minds have only just caught up. She never wants it to end.

They break apart, gasping for breath. Regina cups her cheek. “I thought you were just grateful, yesterday,” she says. “I thought you’d regret it after.”

“Now who’s being obtuse,” Emma replies, and she surges forward to kiss her again. “I’ve wanted you ever since I got here.”

“All this time?” Regina says in wonder. Her hands skim over Emma’s hair, her shoulders, her back.

“I kept _thinking_ about you like this,” Emma says, her voice low and deep in her throat, and she’s rewarded with the sight of a flush creeping up Regina’s neck as her eyes darken.

“Thought you were supposed to be the innocent one,” Regina responds, gaze travelling involuntarily to her chest. Emma just smiles and drags her toward the bedroom, clumsy with anticipation and desire.

“Wait,” says Regina, “are you _sure_ you want this?” and Emma thinks of the blood oath the queen had sworn and an old rumor she’d heard about the Titan Leopold and understands in a rush of tenderness.

“Yes,” she says, and “yes,” she keeps saying, as Regina pauses at every step to ask her again. It’s arguably the hottest thing she’s ever seen, the Queen of the Underworld asking for permission to remove her robe, to put her mouth on her breasts, to insert one finger and then two. Regina’s so _attentive_ , listening to every moan and sigh and learning from her, gentle in a way that Emma wasn’t expecting. Her fingers twist and explore and _right there_ and Emma arches her back and comes apart beneath her, shaking with the force of it.

When she can open her eyes again, Regina’s leaning adoringly over her, tracing the lines of her face with her index finger. “Okay?” she asks, pausing at the wetness on Emma’s cheeks.

“Happy tears,” Emma explains, voice muffled as she buries her head in Regina’s shoulder. She looks up to find Regina still apprehensive, and immediately realizes the problem.

“I wasn’t a virgin, Regina,” she says. “You didn’t, like, despoil me or anything. If I hadn’t wanted any part of that, you’d be in a coma for breaking your promise on the Styx.”

“I know that,” Regina says with a rueful smile.

“Well then stop moping,” Emma says, and she pulls her back down to the bed, pressing her leg between Regina’s thighs and sloppily kissing her neck. “It’s time for me to return the favor.”

They don’t talk for a while after that.

\--

Emma drapes herself lazily around Regina, thoroughly satisfied. “That was nice,” she informs the queen sleepily.

“We aim to please,” Regina says wryly. She rolls over to grab her robe and Emma fumbles for her arm.

“Stay?” she asks. Regina sinks back next to her, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Emma subtly takes the opportunity to check her out, because--the queen of the dead is _hot_. And currently naked in her bed. So, you know, she feels completely entitled to look. (Judging by the Regina’s widening smirk, she isn’t nearly as subtle as she’d hoped to be.)

As her sex-induced stupor begins to fade, though, Emma can feel the guilt threatening to creep in around the edges of her happiness. She'd broken a promise to herself, given in to Regina’s pull when she'd sworn she wouldn't. There's no _future_ here, no way to reconcile this with the rest of her life, and ignoring that fact now will only make the pain worse in the end. 

The problem is that even though she knows how fucked up the whole thing is, the incredibly attractive, morally ambiguous goddess spread out catlike beside her makes her want to do it all over again.

Regina presses closer, unaware of her internal monologue. “I was in love with a mortal, once,” she confesses into the silence between them, and Emma wonders why everyone has chosen _this_ day of all days to tell her their sad stories and why she's absolutely riveted by this one. “His name was Daniel. He worked with horses, rode them through the fields sometimes.” 

Her eyes are far, far away. Emma reaches out to grip her wrist, to anchor her to this world with some small gesture. “When my mother found out...well. She'd been looking for a way to get revenge ever since we’d overthrown her, and she found it.” She smiles wanly, without humor, and Emma hurts for what could have been. “She killed him and cast a curse so that I would never be able to find him in the underworld. And I went back to my kingdom alone.”

“Until me,” says Emma.

Regina bites her lip. “Until you.”

Emma doesn't know how to respond to this display of trust except by reciprocating, so she lies flat on her back and stares at the ceiling and lets Regina in a little farther. 

“Snow found Hook kissing me, one day,” she says softly. “I didn't--I didn't ask him to. But he did, and she saw, and she hid me away in the forest so I could keep my innocence forever.” She wants to continue so badly, to tell Regina _I loved a different god_ and _I have a son_ but it's too soon, too dangerous. “The day you took me was the first time I’d been out in eons.”

Regina unconsciously emits a small, pained sound from the back of her throat. “You should go above ground, tomorrow,” she says. It’s somehow exactly what Emma needs to hear, and she snuggles closer and lets her eyelashes brush against Regina’s cheek in gratitude.

She doesn't realize until she returns the next day that Regina thought she would leave forever, that the queen was saying goodbye in the only way she knew how.

\--

It's strange to finally be on the ground again, with the sky above her and the earth solid beneath her feet. There’s an _openness_ to this world that she’d forgotten after weeks of stifling darkness, a sense of freedom paired with emptiness that tugs at the wild part of her.

Emma goes to find her parents first, because she’s nothing if not a dutiful daughter and she knows exactly how worried they’ve been, thanks to Regina. Snow cries with joy to see her, and Emma feels the knot of guilt and anger in her stomach squeeze painfully. Charming gives her a half smile and a hug, ruffling her hair before she twists out of his grasp in feigned indignation. “We were worried about you,” he says.

“I know.” Emma squirms under their scrutiny. Her pressing need to run, strangely absent during these past few days in the underworld, has returned with a vengeance.

Snow gives her a long hug, still teary. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” she exclaims, hands rubbing up and down Emma’s arms as if to check that she is, indeed, unharmed. “I’m so sorry for everything, Emma. This is our chance for a new start! Now that you’ve escaped from Regina, we can have a life as a family again!” Her eyes shine with so much hope that the scorched earth below her has begun to take on a greenish tint; Emma thinks she can even make out a few flowers beginning to sprout up from the ground.

“Snow,” Emma says hesitantly, registering her mother’s hurt at the use of her proper name, “Regina didn’t--I didn’t _escape_. She let me go.”

“What?”

“Just for the day,” Emma clarifies. “Then I have to go back.”

Snow’s lost for a moment as she studies Emma in a way that makes her feel sharply self-conscious, exposed in the bright light of this world. Then her mother is back to her composed, cheerful self. “Well then,” she says briskly, “we’d best make the most of today.” 

Emma knows Snow hasn’t given up the fight for her freedom that easily, just like she knows it’s something Regina’s counting on. She’s being used as a pawn in their twisted struggle, and she’s never been more acutely aware of that fact than while watching her mother try to understand why she’s obeying Regina’s commands. It’s so easy to forget the darker parts of Regina’s nature when she’s around her, when she can catch glimpses of the goddess underneath. But out here, in the open, it’s suddenly impossible to rationalize her actions.

“Actually,” Emma says, and watches both her parents’ faces fall and _gods_ she’s tired of being such a disappointment, “I have something important to do.” 

“Emma…” Snow starts, concerned, and Emma turns away, clenching and unclenching her hands.

“Sorry,” she blurts out, and then she runs like she’s been wanting to do the whole time--her whole life, if she’s being completely honest. She doesn’t look back to see the looks of mingled dismay and frustration she knows they’ll be wearing, and she doesn’t stop until she finally, _finally_ reaches the forest and collapses against a tree, breathing hard as she lets her nails dig into the soft bark. Images flit through her head, one after another: Regina biting her inner thigh with a mischievous smile, Jefferson screaming at her through the bars of his cage, Charming’s hand reaching out to hold Snow’s shoulder as she sprints away from them.

She pushes it all away and goes to find Henry, because if there’s anyone who can make the shitshow that is her life have some kind of meaning, she’s pretty sure it has to be him.

\--

When she finds the small cabin at last, Red is waiting for her outside.

“Emma!” she shouts in delight, running toward her. “I’ve been so worried!”

“Red.” Emma embraces the goddess, relieved. “How is everything?”

Red takes on a distinctly shifty look, and Emma stops in her tracks, suddenly afraid for reasons she can’t name. “What happened?” she asks flatly.

“He’s gone,” Red admits, eyes welling with tears. 

Her heart stutters to a stop. “What?”

“He left a note,” is all Red will say, and she leads Emma into the house and stands guard by the door as she reads her son’s words and aches somewhere deep inside.

_Dear Red,_  
_Sorry I left without saying goodbye. I have to go and save my mom. Please don’t come looking for me, I need to do this on my own._  
_I’ll miss you._  
_Henry_

“Emma?” comes Red’s voice, faltering slightly on the last syllable.

“He went to find me in the underworld,” Emma says. “ _Fucking_ heroism genes,” and she laughs dully. “He’s going to get himself thrown into Tartarus, or worse.”

“I’m so sorry,” Red says, “I should’ve known he would try something like this.”

“It’s not your fault,” is all Emma can say, and the thing is, it’s the truth. Red has always been there for her, and she knows from experience that when Henry wants to do something, there isn’t much that can stop him. But she still can’t help thinking that she should have been here, should have let him know she was okay before he did something so unbearably _stupid_. 

_Some mother you are_ , she thinks to herself, and the bitter self-loathing settles in her veins like poison.

\--

She snaps at Charon on the boat ride over to _go faster, damn it_ and she scans the shores for a glimpse of familiar brown hair and she rocks with worry until she almost tips the boat over. 

She’ll never forgive herself if something happens to Henry. That’s been the one undeniable truth of her life since his birth, an internal promise forged in sweat and blood: his safety is her only priority. She never wanted him to be hurt like she has, like Regina has. He isn’t _prepared_ for the darkness of this realm; she’s protected him in peaceful isolation for his entire life, and now she’s not there when he needs her the most.

One day, centuries ago, Emma had gone down to earth to observe the mortals. She’d seen an earthquake hit a small village, tear it apart relentlessly as screaming men and women fled their homes. That’s what her heart feels like, now. Like it’s cracking along tiny fault lines and invisible fissures, threatening to split apart with the slightest shift.

“He loves books,” she says abruptly. She feels a strange need to make someone else see her agony, to soothe the ache by pushing it outside of herself. “And humans, and music. He asks every single being he meets to tell him about their lives, because--because he actually _cares_.”

Charon stares at her, unimpressed, and she snorts in disgust. “Don’t know why I thought you’d give a shit.” 

He gives her the finger and jerks his head toward the ground to indicate that they’ve arrived at the other side.

“Okay, jackass,” Emma says without heat, and she steps down and plants a golden coin into his hand. “You can rot in Hades, for all I care.”

Charon pushes off the shore with his pole and fades into the mist. Emma sighs and steels herself, because unfortunately, she knows exactly what she has to do now.

\--

“Regina?” she yells, shutting the heavy door behind her. The castle looks exactly the same as she’d left it, although the shades have been drawn once again, giving the interior a faintly menacing air.

“In here,” the queen calls from above her. Her voice sounds lighter, somehow; Emma figures it’s just the acoustics of the palace. She scales the winding staircase and follows the sound to a small room before stopping short.

Standing with their backs to her are two very familiar, dark-haired figures.

“Henry?” she whispers, voice wavering, and they both spin around to face her.

“Mom,” her boy replies, relief in every crevice of his smile, and he envelops her in a tight hug. Emma looks past his shoulder to see Regina staring at her, shocked. 

“This is--you have a _son_?”

“Yeah, and you should get away from him,” Emma says fiercely. She pushes Henry behind her and inches back toward the door. Trusting Regina with her own safety is far easier than believing the queen won’t hurt him, and right now she feels nothing but a pressing desire to get _out_ , to shield Henry from the mess she’s made. The joy of finding him alive can wait until they’re both above ground.

“We’re leaving now,” she says, and Regina watches them go, sorrow in the lines and curves of her limbs and silent pleading in her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [MurderouslyAdorkable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderouslyAdorkable/pseuds/MurderouslyAdorkable/) is the best ever.
> 
> sorry this one took so long. i got sucked into the jessica jones vortex and watched the whole thing in 4 days (whoops).


	5. Chapter 5

They're almost to the Acheron before Regina catches up to them, slightly out of breath.

“Emma,” she calls imploringly, and Emma fights herself not to turn around at the desperation in her voice. Every ominous story she’s ever heard about Regina comes back to her: tales of broken hearts and stolen dreams, deities laid low and monsters unleashed. Is this really someone that she wants to trust with her own _son_?

Except she also remembers spinning in silence, tucked into the niche between Regina’s neck and shoulder while the queen ran her fingers through the tips of Emma’s hair and looked at her like she’d come home. (Emma knows this feeling, because sometimes she looks at Henry the same way.) She remembers Regina taking her to see the Moirai and their great loom, watching the flashing life-strings of mortals jump and twist and tentatively snaking their hands together. She remembers lying among the golden flowers of her tiny garden and laughing as Regina made sparks from an eternal flame dance like puppets before her.

There’s no way to ignore her own hypocrisy in baring her soul to Regina and then refusing to believe her, and ultimately it’s this tangled dichotomy that makes her pause.

“What do you want, Regina?”

“Please,” the queen says. “Please, we can talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Emma insists. She can’t think, can’t function when Regina’s this close and all she can register is the smoky-sweet scent of her hair. “He can’t stay here.” She slides her hand along Henry’s neck, clutches at his shoulder. He glares up at her in protest.

“We could...I could _try_. For you,” Regina says, and she looks studiously at her feet, hands twisting. Her hair is still mussed from her run.

“We’re not going to become some perfect little family,” retorts Emma, but there’s an avalanche in her head and in her heart, and the noise drowns out everything except the blood pounding in her veins.

“Please,” Regina says again.

Emma clutches at the corners of her elbows and thinks of a hundred reasons this won’t work. (Her parents. Regina’s darkness. Their fucked up pasts. The sheer impossibility of it all.)

“Fine,” she says, and the avalanche stops, tiny rocks coming to rest in the bottom of her mind as the dust slowly settles into the cracks.

\--

And so, they stay.

Henry’s tentative with Regina at first, but she’s so careful with him, so _earnest_ , that he soon warms to her. And it helps that he loves so easily, Emma’s son. He spreads his affection with liberal abandon to everyone around him, and of course Regina is no exception, not the queen with her open smiles and her soft eyes.

He pesters her with endless questions about the underworld, and she bears them all with remarkable grace. ( _Why did you come here?_ he asks once, and Regina smiles sadly and says _I didn’t have a choice._ ) In return, she tells him stories about mortals: Orpheus and Adrastus, Daedalus and Jason. He listens with rapt attention ( _more than he’s ever given me!_ Emma says indignantly one day, and all three of them laugh, the sounds floating in harmony over each other), eyes wide as Emma hovers in the background.

During the first week, Regina takes him on a tour of her realm. He climbs trees on the Isles and inspects the most gruesome of the dead in Asphodel and manages to sneak a glimpse of Tartarus before they both usher him away, fingers brushing across the small of his back. He wants to know the stories of the souls he encounters (of course he does, because he’s Henry), and when they refuse to reply he invents them: a brave warrior felled in battle, a scorned lover poisoned by a rival, a skilled hunter gored by a wild bear.

Emma watches them sometimes, Henry and Regina. They careen toward each other, pulled by some invisible force that excludes her yet taunts her with its power. They’re so _similar_ , the isolated young god and the exiled queen, both searching for things she’s never even thought to look for. At times she can’t help but be jealous. (Except then she remembers teaching Henry how to walk and playing with him in the meadow and singing softly to him late at night and it’s alright, somehow.)

Regina’s rough edges are smoother around him, too; her smiles come easier these days, and when Henry gives her a hug for the first time Emma swears she can see tears in her eyes. She spends more time at the castle and less above ground. She’s _present_ in a way she wasn’t before, lingering at the edges of Emma’s vision like she’s waiting for the right moment to fall into step next to her and Henry, to match up their footsteps to the rhythm of their hearts.

Emma hasn’t returned to the queen’s bedroom yet, but when she looks at Regina with Henry she knows it’s only a matter of time. Some final piece of the puzzle has clicked into place, and everything that’s been stopping her from surrendering to her desire has suddenly disappeared, lost in the outpour of Regina’s warmth.

Some days, she wonders how she ever could have considered leaving. (Some days, she wakes up and despises herself for hoping and waits for the axe to fall.)

Henry’s the one who keeps her grounded, underneath it all. He bounces into her room in the mornings to announce whatever plan he and Regina have concocted ( _we’re going to watch the mortals celebrate at their festival!_ ) and pulls her downstairs to where Regina is inevitably waiting. They watch as the queen eats her breakfast, and then Emma heads off to patrol the underworld while her son follows Regina down to earth. He still thinks of it as an adventure, she knows, something he’ll be able to write about in the distant future when this uncertainty is only a faint memory in the great scope of their lives. She doesn’t know how to explain to him that this isn’t a permanent solution, no matter how much they both might want it to be.

Motherhood, she’s beginning to realize, is a lot more complex than she’d thought.

(So is love.)

\--

Red comes to visit, once Emma and Henry can get a message to her that they’re both fine.

“I’m mad at you,” she says, dodging Emma’s feeble attempt at a hug.

“Sorry?” Emma replies with a sheepish smile, and Red huffs out a frustrated breath.

“Fine, I forgive you. But if you ever scare me like that again, so help me, I will set the Chimera on your ass!” She turns to Henry, face breaking out in a grin. “And how’s my favorite baby god doing?”

“I’m almost 400!” Henry exclaims in protest, but he lets himself be pulled into her embrace all the same.

They sit together in the castle, trading stories from their time apart. (Emma is intensely thankful that Regina has chosen to remain in her room upstairs, that she won’t have to deal with the queen’s uncertainty about her place within their small family or Red’s knowing gaze at the sight of the two of them together.) Henry tells Red about his daily adventures and everything he’s learned about the Olympian gods; Emma feels vaguely guilty for neglecting his education up until this point, but he doesn’t seem to have suffered too much for it. Red responds with a brief summary of what’s happening above ground (which boils down to the fact that Snow is still refusing to let food grow from the earth), and Emma shares tales of her cases from this world, tiny triumphs over microcosms of evil.

When they’ve all narrated every pent-up anecdote and hilarious story, there’s a comfortable silence.

Then: “Okay, your mom and I need some grown-up goddess time, Henry,” Red says. Emma glares at her.

“Right,” says Henry slowly, gaze switching between the two of them like he’s expecting an imminent physical attack, which, to be fair, is an entirely plausible scenario if Red’s about to go into lecture mode. “I’ll just go read in my room, then.” He trots off (probably to go sit at the top of the stairs and listen to their conversation, but Emma’s getting better at knowing when to pick her battles and she decides to let this one go).

Red straightens her back and clasps Emma’s hands, expression grave. “Emma. Swan. Whatever they’re calling you these days. You need to figure out your shit.”

Emma sighs. “I’m aware of that.”

“I don’t think you are, because imagine my surprise when my little friends dropped in to tell me that you--who I had last seen all gung-ho about rescuing your son from the dangerous underworld and its evil ruler--had decided to _stay_ here.”

“It’s complicated, Red,” Emma says, cursing herself internally for forgetting that Red gets all her information from the wild beasts of the woods, that of course she would find out everything that’s been happening.

“Please explain to me how wanting to live in what is possibly the most dangerous realm in the universe is complicated.” 

“I--”

“Oh my _gods_ ,” Red says, peering at her in feigned horror, “you’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Emma makes a valiant attempt at forming words and fails.

“You’re in love with the Queen of the Underworld. And you wonder why I call you a sucker for the broody types.” She shakes her head.

Emma finally manages to make sounds again. “I’m not _in love_ with her, Red. I just...she’s been really good to us, and Henry loves it here--he’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

Red waggles a finger at her. “Do not play the Henry card with me, I know you too well for that. Are you sleeping with her?”

“It was only once!”

“ _Hades_ , Emma. This is worse than I thought.”

Emma traces the corner of the table, digging the wood into the soft skin of her fingertip. “I don’t know what else to do,” she says quietly.

“Oh, honey,” and Red moves closer and squeezes her tight. She smells like the forest, like rain seeping through the trees. “You’re allowed to want things for yourself, you know.”

Emma tries to respond but her throat closes up, and Red looks at her and smiles and wraps herself warm and solid around her.

\--

That night, Emma opens the door to Regina’s room.

The queen’s sitting up in bed, reading a yellowed scroll that she discards immediately. She looks Emma over and shifts as if to open the blankets in invitation but then pauses, clearly wondering if she’s misread the situation.

Emma lets her robe fall to the floor. “I want you,” she says, made bold with lust, “so you don’t have to keep asking me this time.” 

Regina’s frozen, staring at her in wonder. Emma squirms impatiently, and suddenly Regina’s _there_ , nipping at her jawline and cupping her ass and grinding her into the wall and _this_ is what she wants for herself, Regina desperate and jagged with desire.

She moans and pulls at Regina’s clothes in annoyance, and the queen spins her toward the bed while somehow discarding her robe at the same time. She straddles her, thighs brushing Emma’s as she kisses the tip of her nose. (Emma twists because it’s a little too much and Regina seems to understand, drifting down to her chest as she lets Emma writhe against her palm.)

“How?” Regina asks hoarsely between open-mouthed kisses of her stomach. Her hand drifts out of reach and Emma groans softly.

“Harder,” she hisses, and Regina grips her wrists tightly and _finally_ slides a finger into her, testing the wetness she finds there.

It’s rougher than before, heavier. Regina’s more daring now, and she seems to know exactly what Emma wants before the thoughts can even cross her mind; her hands are everywhere, and her body pins Emma’s down like a promise, like _this is real_ and _I’m not letting you go_. She’s three fingers deep inside her while the heel of her hand grazes her clit over and over and Emma can feel herself edging toward a distant crest.

“Not yet,” Regina smirks at her, and she whines in dismay as the queen removes her fingers, licking one obscenely and offering the other two for her to taste.

And then Regina licks a trail back down her side and puts her mouth on her clit and sucks gently and everything goes a bit fuzzy for a while.

When she can breathe again, Emma kisses Regina once, hard and bruising. “Gods, you’re amazing,” she says, and it’s not what’s in her heart but it’s enough, still.

“So are you, dear,” Regina replies, biting her earlobe.

Emma skims a hand over her thigh. “Your turn, now,” she says firmly.

Regina smiles and pushes her away, kissing her fingers as if to take away the sting of the rejection. “Not tonight, Emma.”

She flushes. It’s a little much to take, all this attention and nowhere to hide, and she’s always felt the need to _please_ : to be a good daughter to her parents, to make Bae happy. Regina is the first to give her everything without any expectations, and the thought is remarkably satisfying but also confusing because Regina’s done so _much_ and Emma feels suddenly small next to her.

“Okay,” she says after a beat, and she settles for pressing herself further into Regina, fitting their bodies together and trying to lose herself in the touch of their skin.

She’s almost asleep when Regina begins to hum. It’s a foreign melody, one that comes from a land far across the sea, and it soothes her into the dreamworld with its haunting, whispered tune.

\--

Regina hires one of the dead--Mulan, incidentally, and Emma’s oddly thankful to see her again--as Henry’s tutor, when it’s clear his thirst for knowledge will not be sated by her own short stories. They discuss history and current events and even go on field trips (once Emma’s worries about daemons have been put to rest and Regina has assured herself of Mulan’s ability to protect him). Henry _adores_ her, wants to know everything about how she died and what battle is like, hangs on her every word.

Emma hasn’t spent a lot of time with him in the past few weeks, and when she goes to pick him up from his lesson she’s shocked at how _comfortable_ he seems here. He’s talking excitedly to Mulan about some ancient war, gesticulating wildly as she leans back in her chair and grins.

“Hey, kid,” Emma says, and he stops and runs toward her, history book lying forgotten on the table.

“Mom! What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to...go for a walk, to talk to you about some things.”

Henry looks dubious, but he follows her outside.

“Are we leaving again?” he asks after they’ve been walking for a few minutes.

“No,” Emma says, taken aback. “Do you...is that what you want?”

He shakes his head. “I like it here, Mom. I like Regina and Mulan and Graham and learning about cool stuff and getting to have my own room. I just--thought it might be what you wanted. Like how you had to go away a lot when we lived in the cabin because you needed space.”

“Oh, Henry,” she says, and she reaches out to stroke his cheek. “We’ll stay for as long as you want to stay.”

He considers this for a minute, eyes squinty like they always are when he’s concentrating on something important. “I think I want us to stay for a long time. But I think I want us to stay because _you_ want it, too.”

“C’mere,” she gets out, and she hugs him, her beautiful, selfless son with his kind eyes that see too much.

He looks up at her. “We’re a family, right? You and me and Regina?”

“Yeah, kid,” says Emma after a pause. “We’re a family.”

“Well, families make decisions together,” Henry says decisively. “So we should just talk about these things.”

Emma laughs. “Regina and I aren’t exactly ones for talking about our problems.”

“Yeah, I got that from the sounds coming out of your room last night,” Henry says without missing a beat, and Emma chokes. She’d _told_ Regina to bite her fist or something but she hadn’t known they were being _that_ loud and she’s probably just scarred her child for life--

“It’s fine, Mom,” he says, watching her distress with an unnecessarily high level of amusement. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

Emma manages a jerky nod of agreement, face red. (Except that he’ll always be her baby and she might have to invest in a gag if Regina keeps on like this, because it’s one thing to think you’re an adult but it’s another to hear the goddess of the underworld scream as your mother makes her come harder than she ever has before.)

“I don’t think Regina wants to lose you,” Henry tells her earnestly. “So you should talk.”

Emma exhales. “You’re probably right, kid.”

“I’m always right,” he says with a smirk.

She smacks his shoulder gently. “This is what I get for saying that you’re smart all the time. I think your head is growing as we speak.”

Henry juts out his chin as if daring her to do something about it, and so she tickles him until he’s gasping for breath on the ground and they’re both shrieking in joy.

It’s always good to establish _some_ authority as a parent, after all.

\--

“Henry knows about us,” she informs Regina that night.

They’re curled up together in bed, and Emma has her face buried in Regina’s neck and her arm draped over the queen’s stomach. (She will deny it ferociously, but Emma knows by now that Regina secretly loves being the little spoon.)

Regina rolls over to face her, hesitant. “How do you feel about that?”

“Honestly? Not as terrible as I thought I would. I mean, yeah, it’s embarrassing that he heard us having sex, which is entirely your fault, by the way, but--I think he understands more than I give him credit for.”

“He’s smart,” Regina says with a small smile.

“Didn’t get that from me, I assure you.”

Regina curls a piece of Emma’s hair around her finger once, twice. “You don’t know that.”

“We both know I’m not the most intelligent goddess around.”

“You’re perfect,” whispers Regina, and it’s a little too close to this thing they’ve been skirting around for weeks now.

Emma’s silent for a moment, and then she thinks _fuck it_. “He also asked me if we were a family, the three of us.”

 _That_ gets Regina’s attention, though she tries very hard not to let it show. “And what did you say?” she asks tentatively.

“I told him we were,” Emma says. “That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Yes, dear,” replies Regina, tears at the corners of her eyes as she presses a soft kiss to Emma’s lips. “I suppose it is.”

They lie comfortably together for a few more moments before Regina swings her legs over the side of the bed and opens the drawer of her mahogany bedside table. She takes out a small vial.

“I got you some nectar from above ground, today,” she says, holding it out like a peace offering. They haven’t played their little food game since Henry arrived in the underworld, both seeming to realize that the joke wasn’t quite as funny anymore, so this feels like closure, almost. Like shutting a door behind them and agreeing to trust each other.

“Thanks,” Emma responds gratefully. It’s been long enough without nourishment that the sight of it makes her mouth water, even though she could probably survive for years without anything at all. She unscrews the cap and gulps down half the container before the expression on Regina’s tugs at some feeling of dread within her chest; she freezes and suddenly spits the entire mouthful out on the cold stone floor.

Sitting at the bottom of the vial are four small pomegranate seeds, unmistakably taken from the tree just outside the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently i am incapable of ending a chapter with something other than angst. sorrynotsorry.


	6. Chapter 6

Emma lets the seeds spill out onto her hand, and they sit like droplets of blood in the center of her palm, taunting her. She feels cold, empty, as if the heat from her body has condensed into a brightly burning mass deep within her chest and her heart is at the center, beating slow and strong and painful.

“What are these?” she asks hollowly. She already knows the answer, but she feels a bitter desire to make Regina say the words, to make her confront the horror of her actions.

“I’m sorry,” Regina says, the words bursting out of her. “Emma, I’m truly sorry. I thought you wanted to be a family--”

“And so you decided to force me into it? To make sure I couldn’t leave? You thought it was _okay_ to take away my free will?”

Regina opens her mouth to speak and Emma slaps her, hard. “I wanted to trust you so badly,” she says, and now she’s crying and the ball in her chest curls tighter and burns brighter. “But you’re just like everyone else, aren’t you, just taking and taking and _taking_ until the rest of us have nothing left to give.” 

“You were going to leave!” Regina cries. “You were going to take your beautiful son and all your light and you were going to leave me alone.”

“Fuck you,” Emma snarls. “You don’t know that. This is the only place I’ve ever wanted to stay.”

“I never--”

“Or I would have wanted to, if you hadn’t just proved how much of an idiot I am for ever thinking you could change.”

Regina lets out a strangled sound of pain. “Your _mother_ was the one who told mine about Daniel! She promised to keep my secret, and she betrayed me. So forgive me for being hesitant to trust the word of her daughter.”

“I don’t _care_!” Emma shrieks. “I don’t care about your history, I don’t care about any of it, because you know what? Bad stuff happens to everyone, Regina, and none of us look our lovers in the eye and tell them they’re perfect and then try to trap them in the underworld forever with fucking pomegranate seeds.”

“I just wanted you to stay,” Regina says with her sad eyes, and Emma laughs sharply, the sound rasping in the echoes of her throat. “Everyone leaves, and I just wanted you to be the one to stay.”

“And I thought _I_ was messed up.”

Regina recoils at this; it seems to hurt her more than the slap. “Please, try to understand,” she begs.

“I’ll never understand you,” Emma says. 

It’s a lie. Emma understands desperation and loneliness and fear. She knows what it’s like to pull too tight and hold on too long, to protect and overprotect and trap with love, even if she’s usually been on the other side. But some things can’t be forgiven and some things are better left unsaid, and so she turns away and walks the long corridor to Henry’s room while Regina trails behind her like a pale, fragile ghost.

\--

Henry must have heard them arguing, because he’s awake and pacing by the time they reach his door.

“Is everything ok?”

“No, kid,” Emma says grimly, “it’s not.”

He looks at them, at the tear tracks on their faces and the agony written in the set of their teeth, and seems to understand. “What happened?”

Emma grabs his hand. “Regina did a really bad thing, Henry, so I need you to come with me.”

“What did she do?”

She tries to pull him toward the hallway, but he refuses to budge, face set, and she’s so _tired_ of having to explain and if she has to tell her son about Regina’s betrayal she thinks her heart might explode. “Now is really not the time--”

“I tried to give your mother food from the underworld, Henry,” Regina says from behind her.

He’s off balance now, spinning in a void of bewilderment. “Mulan said that eating food from here traps you so you can never leave. Why would you want to do that?”

“I...was very lonely, for a long time. I didn’t want to lose you both, and I made a mistake,” Regina replies. She can’t meet his eyes.

Henry thinks for a moment, brow furrowed with concentration. “Why didn’t you just ask us to stay here?” he asks finally, and Emma’s _done_.

“Come on, kid,” she says, dragging him behind her. “We have to leave.”

“But you said we weren’t going to!”

“Yeah, well, that was before Regina tried to make me a prisoner.”

Regina’s crying as she follows them out of the castle, and it shouldn’t hurt so much but it does. Emma clutches her son tighter and walks faster, like maybe if she doesn’t turn around none of this will be real.

“Maybe...she just made a mistake, like she said. Maybe we should give her another chance,” Henry suggests quietly from her side.

“I’m done giving her chances,” says Emma fiercely.

He rips his arm out of her grip. “She was changing, Mom! You were both changing each other. I don’t want to leave, please.”

“Henry,” she pleads, kneeling and framing his face with her hands, “we don’t have a choice. What if next time she tries to hurt you, or take you away from me? She’s _evil_.”

“She’s not,” he says stubbornly.

“Emma, please. I love him too,” Regina whispers from behind them, and Emma shakes her head in confusion and it’s just enough room for Henry to writhe from her grasp and run toward the apple grove, single-minded with determination and panic.

She curses and sprints after him. By the time they’ve caught up, though, he’s already holding a cursed fruit up to his lips.

“Henry, no!” she screams. Regina’s frozen with terror beside her, mouth open in a silent cry.

“You may not believe in her, but I do,” he says, and he bites into the apple in one swift movement before collapsing onto the cold ground, eyes fading from belief to blankness in a single second.

Emma lets out an inhuman wail and rushes to his side. The pain is blinding, cutting through everything else and spiking behind her temples. There’s red at the edges of her vision, tiny spots of rage, and she wants to tear it all to shreds, to rend this world apart at the seams.

Her son will never again know the heat of the sunlight on the peak of Olympus. He will never dance with the dryads or listen to the satyrs play their pipes. He will never observe the mortals, their strange delights and irrational conflicts. He will never meet his father.

And for what? For giving her a chance to have a family? A tiny unit of three, with one almost dead at the other’s hands? It’s all so _useless_ , such a ridiculous waste of bravery and sacrifice and love, and she hates Henry in that moment almost as much as she hates herself.

(She hates Regina more.)

The queen tries to place a comforting hand on her shoulder and she wrenches away from her, lashing out with miserable fury. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

“The magic of these trees is designed for gods thousands of years old. It may have...affected him differently,” Regina admits, voice cracking.

“So--he could--”

“Yes.”

This is all your fault,” Emma growls at her in response. It’s too much to take, the whiplash from betrayal to uncertainty and now to absolute terror. She strokes Henry’s hair soothingly and wishes for a miracle.

Regina clutches at her arm. “Don’t you think I know that? Do you think this is something I wanted to happen? He’s too good for this world, Emma.”

“And I’m not.” It’s amazing that Regina still can find ways to hurt her, after everything.

“No, that’s--that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s true though, isn’t it? That he’ll never be able to leave?”

Regina picks up the apple from his limp hand and inspects it for a moment, counting softly under her breath. “Not for six months out of every year, no.”

Emma leans over his unconscious body and allows herself to let the tears come. “You ruin everything you touch,” is all she says, and the words spin and cut into the air between them as Regina falls breathless to her knees and presses a broken kiss to Henry’s forehead.

He wakes suddenly, gasping and wide-eyed. Emma exhales slow, steady. “Mom?”

“I’m here, Henry,” she murmurs. Regina withdraws to a point a few feet behind her, hands twisting and twisting, tiny cuts with sandpaper edges. “You stupid, self-sacrificing, beautiful boy.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Emma hugs him in relief and anguish and a lot of other things all mixed up inside.

“It’s okay, kid. We’re going to be okay.”

(It’s not okay. Distantly, she wonders how she let things get so curled up and tangled, if there was a moment in the brittle thread of her life when she could have taken a different path and avoided so much heartache. She also wonders if she would have taken it, given the choice.)

\--

They bring him back to the castle. Emma still can’t look at Regina. Henry seems fine, just as healthy as before, but Regina shows her the slight tallies on the inside of his wrist that mark the months he must spend in the underworld.

“They don’t hurt, Mom,” he says, and Emma squeezes her eyes shut until small pinpricks of light erupt under her lashes.

“Let’s get you to bed,” she replies with a forced smile.

He settles in without complaint, seemingly accepting the necessity of waiting until morning to discuss things. “Love you both,” he says as they shut the door. The latch clicks and locks the ache inside of her while Regina smiles joylessly.

They sit down at the main table together.

“What are we going to do, Regina?” Emma asks. She pinches the soft skin between her finger and thumb, holds it. “How does this end?”

“You don’t have to remain here, not right away,” Regina responds gently. “You have six full months before the marks will pull him back down. And even then, you won’t have to stay.”

“You think I’m going to abandon my _son_? With _you_?”

Regina reaches out a hand to her, and then seems to think better of it. “Of course I didn’t mean it that way. I just...I know sometimes you need to run, and I’m telling you Henry will be safe here should you ever desire space.”

“And look how well that turned out last time,” Emma retorts. “I’m not leaving him.”

“I can protect him.”

“Maybe it’s you I’m afraid of.”

“If you think I would ever hurt Henry, you clearly don’t know me very well,” Regina counters, snarling at the implication.

Emma laughs humorlessly. “Oh, so you can hurt me, but not him. Is that supposed to comfort me?”

“I never meant to--”

“Yeah, well, you did. So you’ll understand if I have a problem trusting you now.”

Regina looks at her, really looks at her, takes in her puffy eyes and the thin line of her mouth, her dirty robes and the cracks of her lips. “He can have a life here, Emma. I can make this his home.”

“So you’re suggesting, what, that we share him?”

“Yes,” Regina says, and Emma lets her head fall between her hands and squeezes them together as the pressure builds up in her skull. “Do you see another option?”

“I guess not,” she mutters, raising her gaze.

“Thank you,” says Regina gratefully. “I promise you, I'm trying to change.”

“I’m not doing this for you,” Emma informs her. “I’m doing it for Henry.”

\--

“Your mother and I have figured something out,” Regina tells him the next morning. She’s composed again, face perfectly set, as if last night hadn’t ever happened. Emma feels a pressing need to hit her.

“We’re going to spend half the year above ground, with your grandparents, and then for the other half we’ll come down here and stay with Regina,” she explains to Henry.

He blinks and then nods solemnly. He’s subdued this morning, restrained, as if the enormity of his actions has finally sunk in. “So we’re going now? But we’ll be back?”

“Yeah, kid,” she says heavily. “We’re going. Say goodbye and all that, I’ll be outside.” She walks toward the exit and pauses to watch her son and Regina embrace, whispering farewells to each other as the queen pushes his hair back from his face and smiles like she won’t for another six months.

Emma shakes her head and pushes herself away. Mulan is waiting outside, and they embrace. “Gods, I’ll miss you,” she says.

“You’ll see us again, soon enough,” Mulan reminds her. “Give all my love to Henry.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Don’t let him forget everything I’ve taught him.”

“I won’t.”

“Also, your friend, Red? Tell her I wouldn’t mind that drink in the Vale, sometime.”

“ _Mulan_.” Emma punches her playfully in the shoulder. “Good for you. Still living even after death, huh.”

Mulan lets one corner of her mouth quirk up into a smile before sobering. “Seriously, Emma,” she says, “don’t spend the time you have above ground dreading coming back here. Play with your son. Introduce him to your parents. Just...forget about everyone down here, for a little while. Can you do that?”

Emma sighs. “I hope so.”

Henry steps out of the palace, Regina behind him. “I’m ready,” he says sullenly, and Emma musters a strained grin.

“Time to go, then.”

He hugs Regina one last time before shuffling to her side, and they step onto Charon’s boat for the first time since his arrival to this realm.

“Bye!” Henry shouts as the current carries them away and Regina and Mulan begin to drift out of sight, both waving. Emma lifts her hand once before snapping it back to her side. She tells herself she feels nothing as she watches Regina’s face curl into despair, except there’s a tightness to her own expression that won’t go away. She knows they’re not leaving for good, but it still feels like the end of something that could have been, some life they’ll never be able to get back.

“I’ll miss them,” Henry says, hand curling over the gunnel. His hair whips around his face as the speed of the boat picks up, and Emma tries to tuck it behind one ear but the wind is too strong.

“I know, Henry.”

“You’ll miss them, too, though, won’t you?”

“I guess I’ll find out,” Emma says, and she leans against the railing with her son and tries hard to let herself forget, to let the breeze carry her thoughts away and leave her blank and hollow.

\--

There’s still one element of this plan left that Emma’s been dreading ever since Regina said _we can share him_ and she agreed, because she knows it’s time for Henry to meet her parents, and she has absolutely no idea how they’ll react. 

Charming, she thinks, will take it better than Snow, although that’s almost a given, seeing as her mother banished her for eons after witnessing a single kiss. But there are so many unknown factors that she can’t predict, and the scenarios swirling in her head are terrifying. She’s a full-grown goddess, and yet the thought of exposing her indiscretions to her parents fills her with unspeakable fear. 

She loves Henry with everything inside of her; she would choose him over them in a second. And still she knows instinctively that anything they say will hurt him twice as much as it will her, because Henry loves too hard to let go, wears his emotions on the outside and remains optimistic despite everything he’s seen, and disappointment will snap apart his already fragile hope.

“Ready to meet your grandparents?” she asks, and he nods eagerly. Emma presses at the small of his back and leads the way to Olympus.

They find Snow and Charming at the base of the mountain, sitting in an open meadow with a picnic of ambrosia laid out before them. They’re laughing in the warm sunlight, and Emma feels a mild pang of envy at the sight of it. They’ve always been the picture of a perfect couple, her parents, but she’d found it almost tasteless before, too over-the-top to ever be something she’d aspire to. Now it makes her stomach ache with resentment, and she briefly allows herself to picture a picnic of her own with Regina someday before she forces the image down in anger.

“Hi, Mom. Dad.” Emma waves, and her parents stand to greet her, elated.

“Emma, you’re back! We thought...where’s Hook?” Snow asks, confused.

Emma’s thrown. “No idea, why?”

“Rumpelstiltskin sent him to the underworld to get you back from Regina. You haven’t seen him?”

“No,” Emma replies, still bewildered. She wonders idly if Regina had anything to do with this, if the queen found a clever way to throw him into Tartarus or trap him in the prison beneath the palace. She finds she doesn’t much care either way.

“I do hope he’s alright,” Snow frowns, before turning to Henry with a wide smile. “Forgive my manners,” she says. “And who would you be?”

Emma balances him with a slight tap to the shoulder and readies herself. “This is my son,” she says, and the panic rises up into her throat.

Snow blinks once, twice. “What did you say?”

“This is Henry. He’s my son,” Emma repeats, louder this time.

“ _What_? Emma...who’s the father? How _old_ is he?”

“I’m not ready to tell you that just yet. And he was born a couple centuries ago.”

Snow leans unsteadily on Charming and watches Emma’s face and then Henry’s, pinpointing the similarities in the slopes of their noses and the grooves of their cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me,” Emma admits quietly, and she taps out the rhythm _one two three_ of her pulse on Henry’s shoulder and waits.

Snow reaches out to cup the side of her face. “Darling girl,” she whispers, and then she’s hugging both of them, pulling Emma and Henry and Charming together into a jumbled ring of family. “How could we be disappointed in you, when you try so hard? You’re our _daughter_.”

Emma exhales, releases the tension she’s been carrying all day and lets herself get lost in the flood of emotion around her. She’d pictured this conversation in so many ways, and not one of them had ended with such an unequivocal declaration of affection. She’s relieved and thrilled and still terrified of what comes next, how she can ever explain Regina to two gods whose love story has always been blessed with the best of luck.

“I just thought...you know,” she says, gesturing clumsily. “You didn’t react so well, last time.”

“And I’m sorry for that,” Snow replies earnestly. “I know I didn’t do the right thing, then. But now? Emma, this is our chance to be together at last, and I’m sorry you ever doubted that we would be happy about that. We love you so much.”

“And I’m sure we’ll love your son, too,” Charming adds, smiling. Emma wraps herself tighter in his embrace, grateful in ways she can’t quite name.

“Is it okay if we stay for a little longer, this time?” she asks as they break apart.

Snow beams. “Of course. You know you’re always welcome here.”

“Just one thing,” she says, and her parents stiffen.

“What is it?”

“Please let the mortals grow their crops, Mom, it’s getting ridiculous at this point.”

Snow laughs joyously and slings an arm around her and Henry. “I think we can manage that,” she says, and they walk off together, Emma and her parents and her son.

She shouldn’t feel like there’s anything missing. This is what she’s wanted for so long, a chance to bring both parts of her life together, and it feels like the jagged pieces inside of her have been smoothed and polished and put back together.

She shouldn’t feel like there’s anything missing, and yet she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the idea of henry being the one to eat the fruit (apple, obviously, because this is ouat we're talking about) was kind of how this fic was born, and it makes me weirdly happy in an angsty sort of way. also, points to anyone who can pick out lines adapted directly from the show.


	7. Chapter 7

Time passes differently above ground, wisping away in slippery tendrils that Emma can’t quite seem to grasp. She counts the days with marks etched into trees and lies awake at night with a pit in the bottom of her stomach, gazing up at the golden aura of the mountain.

Henry takes to his grandparents as quickly as he’d taken to Regina, enduring their affectionate smothering with only minimal complaint. Snow spoils him rotten, unsurprisingly, showering him with ambrosia and gifts and making flowers bloom wherever he walks. She teaches him proper etiquette and promises him that someday, he’ll meet the Olympian Twelve and impress them all with his wit and knowledge. (Emma knows this is impossible, but she wants him to believe and so she says nothing, guilty and petrified all at once.)

He grows so fast that she sometimes has to stop and just look at him, try to remember him exactly as he is in the moment because she knows he’ll never be the same again. It’s a sobering thought, and it makes her sympathize with Snow more than she’d thought she ever could. Her child is maturing and she is unable to stop it, and some days she wants to hide him away forever and others she wants to show him every dark crevice of the world so he’ll _understand_ why everyone’s so afraid.

Charming’s busy with the war--Snow tells her proudly that hundreds of mortals have been praying to him this time _so take that Phillip_ \--but he still manages to find pockets of space to fit them in, to take them to see an undiscovered wonder down on earth or to practice sparring with Henry. He smiles constantly, even-tempered as ever, but sometimes when Emma gets that itch under her skin she swears he can see right through her. _Go take a break_ , he’ll say, and Emma will hunch out of the clearing and run for miles until her mind is empty, clear.

She dreams of Regina. She can pretend it’s someone else until she catches a glimpse of the queen’s face or a tendril of her voice, and then there’s no hiding from herself. There are dreams that leave her throbbing with need, scattered and trancelike, and then there are those that cover her face with tears when she wakes, unable to remember their substance but still grasping at faint echoes of emotion. (Those are worse, somehow. She stays away from her family on the days after those.)

Snow tries to confront her about what happened in the underworld, some time after she’s returned.

“Why do you think Regina let you go?” she wonders, folding her legs beneath her and lowering herself to the ground beside Emma.

Emma shrugs. “Guess she figured out I wasn’t going to be a very good bride.” She hasn't told her mother about the rest of it, the nights in Regina’s bed or the way she'd felt when Henry asked if they were a family. The way they'd fit together, not perfectly but growing around each other, leaving space in the farflung corners of their hearts. It's so much easier to pretend it was all a lie, to say they were held captive by a malevolent, arbitrarily cruel queen. It's so much less complicated. She doesn't know if she could ever be bold enough to admit the truth, or if Snow could ever understand it. There's always been more unsaid than said between them.

“Listen,” Snow says, “I need to tell you something about why she took you in the first place.” She takes a deep, halting breath. “When I was younger, I--”

“You got the love of her life killed, I know.”

Snow leans back, dumbfounded. “She told you that?” 

“Yeah,” Emma replies sharply. “She told me a lot of things.”

“And you still believed her, even knowing all of it? You still trusted her with Henry?”

Emma clenches her teeth until she can hear them grinding together, slides her jaw back and forth as she tries to force the storm within her back down. “Yeah, I did. Right up until the moment he ate a cursed apple, anyway.”

Snow watches her sadly. “She must have hurt you badly,” she says. It’s not a question, and Emma almost laughs with the ache of it, wants desperately to release the tension in her chest in one burst of feeling and anger and self-hatred.

“Yes. But not in the way you mean,” she says, and when she looks down her fist is so white she can see the tiny blue-green veins tracing a pathway underneath.

They don’t talk about the underworld again.

\--

“You look like shit,” Red informs her the next time they see each other.

Emma winces. “Good to see you, too.”

“I’m serious. The sunlight has done absolutely nothing for your complexion.”

“I haven’t been exactly spending that much time in the open,” Emma mutters.

“No, no,” Red waggles a disapproving finger. “Do not fall into that self-pitying void, Emma. It is a dangerous place.”

Emma laughs then, really laughs, and the sound rings through the air around them and she wonders why it’s unfamiliar to her own ears. “I’m trying not to, I promise.”

“You miss her,” Red states, eyes sympathetic.

“No. Yes. _Gods_ ,” and Emma shakes her head as if to jolt away her thoughts. “More than I want to. Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Well,” Ruby says thoughtfully, “I suppose we could discuss Mulan’s bedroom talents--which are _remarkable_ , in case you were wondering.”

Emma sputters. “But--she’s dead. You’re sleeping with a dead mortal.”

“Yeah, but I’ve already dated gods, goddesses, a demigod, live mortals, and some creature I think was part nymph. Dead mortal was basically the only option left.”

“Where do you guys even...you know what, nevermind, I really don’t need to know this.”

“No, you really don’t,” Red replies cheerfully, and she leans closer. “For future reference, though, there’s a guy in the Fields of Punishment who’s doomed to eternity in a kinky sex dungeon and he doesn’t mind at all if you borrow his stuff.”

“My ears!” Emma yelps, batting her away good-naturedly. “They’ll never recover!”

Red grins wickedly. “I’m just saying, Mulan may be dead but her tongue is alive and kicking.”

“You are possibly the most disgusting immortal being I have ever had the honor of meeting,” Emma tells her. “But seriously, if you’re happy, I’m happy for you. Even if your girlfriend has a huge blood spatter down the side of her armor.”

“Yeah, well, at least I can’t kill this one,” Red says darkly, and Emma remembers with a pang the last mortal she’d dated, who’d wanted so badly to see her true form that he’d ultimately died for it.

“Right,” she says uncomfortably, and they let the silence fall over them like a downy blanket. Red makes it so _easy_ to get away from everything, to forget her troubles in the haze of their playful banter, except there’s always this point they reach when it all comes crashing back to the ground. Neither of them are particularly adept at navigating conversations relating to feelings, Red blunt and flippant in alternate measure and Emma desperate to avoid hard truths as she is, and sometimes it feels like there’s a wall between them that neither is willing to breach.

“So how’s Henry?” Red asks, and Emma sighs.

“He seems fine.”

“But?”

“How could he be, after everything that happened? How can he be okay with the fact that he’s cursed? In a few months, we’ll have to go back to the underworld and these days of playing with his grandparents and watching the sun rise over Mount Olympus will seem like distant dreams to him. And then it’ll start all over again.” Emma crosses her legs and stretches, hears her joints pop and twist under her skin. “I don’t know how he could be fine, after all that.”

“He’s a resilient kid. He’ll get through it.”

“He shouldn’t have to,” Emma says in frustration.

Red reaches out a hand to clasp her ankle. “I know, babe.”

“It’s just--I keep going over it, every moment. Trying to see how I could have _stopped_ it somehow, done better. And I just keep going back to when I let Regina persuade me to stay there with him. I mean, I knew what she was--what she _is_. And I still chose to trust her with not only my life, but his.” Emma raises her head, lets Red see the turmoil behind her eyes. “What kind of mother does that make me?” she whispers, and it’s the question that’s been swirling around in her mind over and over and she doesn’t even know if she wants to hear the answer.

“A normal one,” Red says firmly, and when Emma starts to protest she shushes her. “I’m serious, Emma. None of this is your fault.”

Emma knows she’s let the discussion dip into dangerous territory, that there are certain topics she keeps contained in the limits of her own mind and this should probably be one of them. But gods if it doesn’t feel good to be absolved by just one person, to unload a tiny part of the burden she’s carrying and let it fall away, suddenly weightless.

“You’re wrong,” she says, except the words ring hollow in her ears.

\--

She can sense a change in Henry, the closer they get to the six month mark. He’s restless and wild, running off into the forest or down to earth without warning, and she fears for him and sympathizes with him all at once. He’s lean where he wasn’t before, toned with muscle from his play-fights with Charming. His cheeks are gradually losing their roundness. He’s too old but he’s too young at the same time, and once he admits quietly that he’s scared of what will happen when they go back and once he tells her not to be afraid because he’ll protect her no matter what.

They stay up late together, sometimes, and he whispers the stories he’s learned from Regina and Snow and Mulan into the night air as she watches the shadows play over his profile. Occasionally he brings scraps of paper with fragments of his life scrawled across them. _I’m going to write our story_ , he tells her seriously, and she says _okay, kid_ but inside she thinks _who would want to read our story?_ In her experience, people want to escape, to be transported to worlds without pain or suffering, where good always wins and evil is snuffed out as soon as it appears. She doesn’t know why anyone would choose to immerse themselves in someone else’s tragedy.

Henry stays close to Snow and Charming, when she’s not around, surprises them with casual displays of affection and tells them he loves them every time they leave, like he’s afraid they won’t come back and he’s trying to make his last words count. Emma watches as he absentmindedly scratches at the tally marks on his wrist and wonders if they’ll all survive this. When he catches her looking, he scuffs his shoe into the ground and pulls at his sleeve until the fabric drapes over his fingers limply.

As the days pass, her mother grows more anxious, and the earth reflects her emotions as it always has. Flowers wilt and fade, and the mortals shiver in their coats and complain about the frost. Emma wakes to find tendrils of ice snaking through the roots of the trees and tries not to feel as if all of it is her fault.

She wonders whether Regina is watching the weeks tick by with the same dread that she feels, or if the queen is simply excited for companionship again, however hostile. She wonders if Regina’s spies have told her about Emma’s periodic forays into the woods to howl at the sky. She wonders if Regina even thinks of her at all, and then she curses herself for her weakness.

She wonders if Regina dreams of her, too.

They spend their last day above ground together as a family, feasting on nectar and ambrosia and laughing in the crisp air. There are shadows under their eyes and in the hollows of their throats and they ignore them. Charming juggles small stones and chucks Henry under the chin; Snow steals a kiss from him, and Emma can see her fingers digging hard into his hair. She reaches for Henry’s hand.

“It was a good six months,” he says, interlocking their thumbs.

“Yes,” says Emma. It still shocks her sometimes, how brave he is.

“You don’t have to come, tomorrow,” he whispers.

Emma bites her lip and pulls him close so she can hear the staccato beat of his heart. When he was small, she used to put her ear next to his chest and let the rhythm soothe her to sleep. “Course I do, kid,” she says, and there seems to be nothing else to add.

\--

The night passes quickly, blue-grey clouds of dawn soon piercing the oppressive darkness. Henry shows her his marks, and she cringes at the sight of the bright red tallies slashing through his skin, burning with intensity.

“We should probably go,” Emma croaks out, her voice rough with lack of sleep. Snow nods regretfully.

They hug goodbye--tight, too tight--and then Emma and Henry walk toward a distant point until a gaping chasm splits the ground and they’re swallowed up by the earth. Charon is waiting, mute as ever. She wonders what it means that she’s become accustomed to his silence, can almost differentiate between displeasure and unease by the crooked slant of his mouth.

There’s a lone figure waiting for them on the bank of the river. For a moment Emma thinks it must be Mulan, but then they draw closer and she can see that it’s Regina (of course it’s Regina). The queen looks pale and wan, robes falling loosely around her shoulders. Her hooded eyes scan over them before coming to rest on Henry’s face.

And of course she would only care about Henry, of course she's concerned about the boy who sacrificed everything to stay with her, of course she would look at him first, so Emma doesn't know why it hurts so much. 

“You're alright,” Regina says in relief as they step down to the shore.

“No thanks to you,” Emma bites out.

“I only meant--” Regina sighs. “There's no need to be rude.” Her face is stiff and cold, resigned almost. 

“No need to be rude?” Emma scoffs. “My apologies, _Your Majesty_.” She feels an overwhelming need to unleash the full force of the rage that's been building up inside her, let it explode and burn Regina to the ground. If her fury was red before, it's white now: a coiled spring of pulsating energy, a supernova of agony and anger.

“Maybe we should go inside,” says Henry, and she lets him drag her toward the castle as he casts worried glances toward the queen. His marks have faded to pale lines, scar-like streaks barely discernible against the backdrop of his skin.

If she’s being rational (and there have been moments of rationality wedged between the panic, windows of clarity when she goes over the events of that night again and again), Emma knows that Regina did nothing wrong to Henry. It’s not her fault that he is entirely too loyal for his own good, or that he’s just as terrified of losing the people he loves as she is.

But Regina hurt _Emma_. Regina did a terrible thing, and Emma was starting to think that maybe she wasn’t completely evil and that maybe they could have a future together and now she knows she was wrong. She’d let herself be taken in and she can’t let Henry do the same.

Love isn’t love if you can’t let go, at least for a little while. Her mother taught her that.

They enter the castle, and Emma’s taken aback at the changes since their departure. Regina’s palace is _messy_ , dust gathered in the corners and cracks of the walls, which doesn’t make sense because Regina has an army of available servants at her disposal and that must mean she’s _chosen_ not to clean her home. And that makes even less sense, because Regina is fastidious to a fault and once yelled at Emma for several minutes just for putting her feet up on the banquet table.

“Place looks nice,” she says, and Henry gives her a sharp look.

Regina smiles tightly. “I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get to your rooms.”

“Yeah, we didn’t really get much sleep last night. Too busy enjoying our last moments of freedom.”

“I don’t--” Regina starts, and she sighs. “You aren’t prisoners here.”

“Could have fooled me,” Emma retorts.

“I’m really tired,” Henry says loudly, the sound echoing through the room as he grabs her arm. “Let’s go, Mom.”

As they walk up the stairs, Emma sees Regina collapse onto a dusty chair and let her head fall heavy into her her hands. The queen looks more defeated than Emma’s ever seen her, and though she knows she should feel satisfied that her pain is shared, that no one has escaped unharmed, all she can feel is guilt. 

\--

It's a dance between them, after that. They tiptoe around each other in a tentative circle with Henry at the center, linked unwillingly by his determination to pull them together.

He starts up his lessons with Mulan again, and Emma resumes her position as sheriff of the underworld. They’re all trying to return to some semblance of normalcy, except things can’t ever go back to how they were before and she’s reminded of that fact every time she goes out to the garden and spots the pomegranate tree standing peacefully in the shade.

It’s infuriating, having to see Regina every day, because Emma desperately wants to hurt her, to scream at her or hit her or rip her apart, but she also keeps remembering the way her lips tasted like cinnamon and loneliness and a hopeless wanting. And Regina is different now, quieter. She shrinks in on herself when she’s around them and disappears for long periods of time without warning. Emma asks her where she goes once, because she’s always subdued when she returns and Emma’s naturally curious, and she says _to look for something I lost a long time ago_ and bites her lip so hard it starts to bleed.

One night, Emma’s wandering the castle and she passes in front of Regina’s door (which was in her path, obviously, because it’s not like she would ever willingly seek out the queen.) There’s a light on, even though it’s so late her eyes feel heavy and swollen, and she peeks into the room uncertainly to find Regina sitting up in bed, crying.

She makes a small noise of surprise. Regina looks up at her and laughs.

“Come to rejoice in my suffering, have you?” she asks bitterly. “The once great and evil queen, laid low by the young god and his beautiful mother? It’s a great tale, you know. I’m sure the mortals will sing of this for years to come.”

“Regina,” Emma says haltingly--she’s still kind of stuck on _his beautiful mother_ , but she forces herself to focus, and this feels important in a way that helps her push away her anger-- “no. Of course not.”

“Forgive me if I doubt that, considering the things you’ve said.”

“Of course I’m not happy you’re in pain!” Emma shouts, and she leans her forehead against the wall and breathes out slowly. She’d known being here would bring everything back, and she’s revealed too much because of it, laid her soul bare so Regina can tear it open all over again.

“Oh,” Regina says quietly, and they’re both silent for a moment.

“Why did you do it?” Emma asks. She’s still facing away from the queen, away from her bed where they’d seen each other for the first time, and it makes it easier because she can pretend she’s talking to herself, can fool herself into thinking that she’ll never have to hear Regina’s answer.

Regina pauses for a moment. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has been taken away from me,” she says finally, and Emma twists so that their eyes meet and there’s only honesty there, and grief. “My father, Daniel, Henry...you.”

Emma thinks she must have known that Regina loved her. Somewhere in her heart must have lay the knowledge of this truth, hidden in the slide of their skin and the weight of their words. But it’s different to hear her say it in the open like this, real in a way it wasn’t before.

“I just wanted to hold on to something,” Regina whispers, and Emma wants to forgive her so badly it scares her.

“Love is trust,” she says instead. “If you really loved me, you’d know I would have stayed,” and she walks back to her room on unsteady feet and lets a single tear fall to the floor and thinks of how the sky looks from above, threaded cotton clouds in the blue, blue light.


	8. Chapter 8

“Help me,” Regina says to her the next morning. The shadows beneath her eyes have grown overnight, bloomed into blue-black spots of fatigue and desperation.

Henry's off on a field trip, an excursion to a little-known cave in the Fields where it’s said mortals who have something tying them to life reside, those who can never be fully at home in the underworld. Emma knows the feeling, even if she thinks it’s a pile of shit. But he’d read about it in some ancient scroll and become instantly animated, filled with excitement at the possibilities, and it had been such a change from his uncharacteristic dejection that of course she’d allowed it. Mulan’s there to guard him, anyway, and the thought comforts her, even as she’s uncomfortably aware of the fact that Regina’s the only one left in the palace with her.

“Help you what?”

“Understand.” Regina says. “No one _taught_ me these things, Emma. I’ve never had...this before, whatever this is.” She runs a hand through her hair, and Emma tries not to track the ripple of muscle under her skin, the way the dark strands fall loosely back into place. “My parents were titans, and I destroyed them. My first love died at my mother’s hands. The other gods ignore me at best--most despise me, which is why I’ve ended up here and not as the ruler of the sea or the sky.”

Emma tries to protest at this, but Regina waves her away. “We both know it’s true. I suppose what I’m trying to say is...I know there’s no reason for you to forgive me, and I don’t expect you too. I know I’ve done awful, unforgivable things. But I want--well, many things, but mostly I want to deserve you and Henry. I want to try to redeem myself, even if it won’t do much good.” She stretches her hand in the empty air at her side, looks earnestly at Emma.

Emma kisses her.

It’s probably a terrible decision. Actually, it’s definitely a terrible decision. But it’s impulsive and fierce and she’s backing Regina up against the table and pinning her there, running her own hand through the queen’s hair and holding fast.

“I want to hate you so badly,” she whispers into the apex of Regina’s collarbone. She bites down, hard, as if her teeth can scrape away the words and grind them into dust, as if her mark can erase their history. She doesn’t want to think about what this means, just wants to let herself _feel_ for once.

Regina gasps slightly and arches into her, offering herself up like some twisted sacrifice. “I know.”

“Then why can’t I?” Emma asks her, and when there’s no response she pulls Regina’s head back and sucks at her pulse point until a tiny, purple-red star emerges. “Why do I still care about you?”

Regina wrenches herself away at this, chest heaving. “Stop,” she says. “Please. You don’t mean that. You’re confused, you’re hurt, you’re...this isn’t what I meant. I don’t expect this from you as some--some sick part of my path to redemption.”

“Is that what you think this is?”

“What else could it be?” Regina says with a self-deprecating little laugh, a hollow thing that wrenches in the pit of her stomach.

“ _Gods_ ,” Emma hisses. “Stop playing the martyr, Regina. You aren’t above all this. It’s fucked up and messy and painful, yes, but you don’t get to put all of that on me and take the easy way out. I made my own choices, okay? I’ve done shitty things too. I’m not some ethereal being you’ve corrupted, and you don’t have to…to _redeem_ yourself for me, because there was darkness in me a long time before I met you. And I’m still really fucking mad at you, but you don’t get to go on some self-searching journey and leave me alone on the altar you’ve built for me.”

Regina’s looking at her, aghast. Regina’s looking at her like she’s seen something new, discovered a new edge along the smoothness of her sides, and it feels oddly pervasive but satisfying, too.

“Okay,” the queen says eventually. There’s hesitancy in her movements, a newfound tentativeness. Emma thinks: _worship can turn to understanding_. It feels true. Another thing: _understanding can turn to love_ , but that one she ignores, tucks under a blanket of denial in her mind.

“Good,” she says, awkward with the resolution. The sound of footsteps echoes through the castle, saving her. She takes another step back. Regina tucks her hair into place, flushing.

“There’s something you should see,” Mulan says as she rounds the corner, and Emma would be intrigued if it weren’t for the red in her neck and cheeks, the sweat beaded around her hairline. They’re not just the signs of exertion; there’s fear, here, filling the air with its acrid smell.

“Where’s Henry?” Regina asks sharply.

Mulan shakes her head. “You need to come _now_.”

\--

He’s in the cave.

He’s in the _cave_ , and according to Mulan he’s been in there too long, hasn’t made a sound since he disappeared into the blackness.

“I can’t get in there,” Mulan says, frustrated.

“Of course you can’t,” Regina snaps. Her eyes are trained on the opening, trying to decipher shapes out of the obscurity. “You’re dead.”

“I’m well aware,” Mulan responds coolly.

“I’ll go,” Emma interrupts them both, because her son is in that cave and now is not the time for two of the most stubborn beings she knows to clash. “I’ll bring Henry back.”

Regina turns to her. “It’s too dangerous,” she protests, “you don’t know what’s in there.”

“I know that Henry is. That’s enough.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have magic; I’ll go.”

“If you think I’m just going to stand here and let you--”

“Well, someone needs to,” Mulan says, and it snaps them both back to reality.

Emma looks at Regina, dark lashes flicked against the olive of her skin. “Together?”

Regina nods, mute, and as they enter the cave Emma grabs her hand and holds it, tethering them together as they walk into the inky blackness.

It takes her eyes a while to adjust, to sort the grainy particles into discernible shapes. She can make out two distinct forms toward the back wall of the cave, one shorter than the other, and her heart leaps in her chest.

Henry rotates toward them. “Hi,” he says sheepishly, twisting back in forth in that way he has when he knows he’s in trouble and is trying to wriggle out of it.

Emma smiles at him; she’ll leave the scolding for later. Right now she’s just glad to see him again, unharmed and intact. He’s put her in this situation too many times for comfort, but somehow the anger washes away every time when confronted with his upturned expression, his lanky limbs in disarray and his mouth downturned in some semblance of contrition. (He knows it, too, uses it to his advantage all too often and she should really pretend to be stern but he’d probably see right through her.)

The figure next to him turns, and Emma can see it’s one of the dead. He’s handsome, solidly built with a sculpted jawline, but there’s a gaping hole in his chest and his eyes, though kind, look vaguely tortured, like he’s gazing through a window into some hell none of them can fathom.

Beside her, Regina lets out a choked sound from the back of her throat. She’s ashen, staring emptily at the shade. “Daniel?” she says softly, muscles taut with the exertion of remaining still, and Emma understands suddenly.

“Regina,” he replies, strong and steady, a rock in the middle of a roiling river. He’s looking at her in a way that makes Emma distinctly uncomfortable, as though she’s unintentionally intruded on a private moment but can’t distance herself without drawing attention. He’s looking at her like she’s the whole universe, like she can save him, like no one else exists.

“Daniel,” Regina says again. She gulps in air, frantic, and then she falls forward limply, almost uncontrollably, and then they’re hugging--or they would be, except that Regina’s arms pass through Daniel’s body as if he’s without substance, sweeping through the air unimpeded to crash into each other. “What happened to you?” she asks in desperation. She keeps trying in vain to touch him, as if her efforts will make him suddenly materialize into solid form. It’s a horrible thing to watch, a Sisyphean attempt at a reunion she’s probably dreamed about for centuries, and Emma cringes in empathy and something else she can’t name.

“You know, Regina,” he says. “You’ve always known.”

“No,” she says. Her breath hitches, rises and falls as she tries again to press herself against the space he occupies.

Emma reaches for Henry’s hand, and she squeezes his thumb and pulls him toward the entrance. They shouldn’t be here, even if she can’t quite bring herself to look away.

“You have to set me free,” Daniel whispers, cupping Regina’s chin with ghostly fingers.

“I don’t _want_ to.”

“What we had is in the past,” he says. “We both know that. I’ve been gone a long time now, and you--you have the chance to make a future,” and he gestures toward the spot where Emma is currently frozen, trembling as she squeezes Henry’s fingers tighter and tighter.

“I loved you so much,” Regina admits. There are tears running down her face, dripping onto her neck like twin streams, marking her agony in salt.

“I’ll always love you, Regina,” Daniel says, and when he holds her eyes and nods once she clenches hers shut and flicks her wrist and turns away to face the wall while he disappears in a scattered mist, flooding the air and sliding into nothingness as the sound of her broken wail bounces off the sides of the cave.

Emma nudges Henry back toward the opening; Mulan will be getting antsy, and she knows instinctively that Regina won’t want him to see her weak, that the queen guards her mask of composure ferociously and he’s already seen too much. He tiptoes out without protest, which is probably a sign of the gravity of the situation.

“I’m sorry,” she says, when Regina’s sobs have quieted. She’s slumped on the ground, utterly defeated, and Emma’s shocked at how jarring it is to see her this way, to watch the loss take its toll.

“I think I knew...eventually, I knew what would have to happen,” says Regina, voice hitching. She drags a nail down the cave wall; it leaves a thin, chalky trail, white tinged with a hint of blood. “I thought it had already happened, anyways. I just wasn’t prepared.”

“There’s no way to prepare for that.”

“Maybe not.” The queen stands as if the weight of the world rests on her shoulders, and it might, right now. Emma thinks her spine might snap under the pressure. Some part of her wants to share the burden with Regina, press upward forever in a constant battle, the two of them a solitary team holding it up through sheer force of will, except she doesn’t think that’s what Regina needs either.

“What can I do?” Emma asks. ( _Tell me how to help you_ , she means. _Tell me this doesn’t mean what I think it does_. And, if she’s being honest with herself, _tell me what we have is different tell me I’m different tell me it’ll all be okay somehow_.) People are selfish, after all, and people were modeled after gods. A mirror sometimes tells a different story than a window, but it is still a true story.

“Tell me something real,” Regina says.

\--

Emma tells her the name of Henry’s father that night.

She hasn’t told anyone, not Red, not her mother, not even _Henry_ , who thinks he’s some minor forest god who faded out of existence when the mortals forgot him, erased him from their collective consciousness. She doesn’t know what Henry would be more angry about: the fact that she’s lied to him for all these years, or the fact that she’s confided in her betrayer before her own son.

“Baelfire,” Regina muses, eyes trained on some point below Emma’s left shoulder. “He was one of Rumpelstiltskin’s sons, wasn’t he?”

“One of the only gods that survived, yes.” Emma shifts uncomfortably, inching farther toward the edge of the bed. They’re lying down at opposite ends, and the gap between them feels too small despite the fact that she’s almost falling onto the floor. 

“And you were…”

“Together,” Emma offers, “for a short time.” When Regina looks at her, seemingly waiting for more, she sighs. “He was terrified of his father. There was some prophecy that Rumple’s son--the most powerful of his sons, actually--would result in his destruction. Bae was running from him for a long time, and he was always worried I’d be caught up in it.”

“What happened to him?”

Emma shrugs. “He just...disappeared. I always thought he’d left to protect me from Rumpelstiltskin, and that’s probably true--if he’d known about Henry, he never would have gone. But no one’s heard from him since. The mortals might have forgotten him; he was never that popular, and his father might have had a hand in it. I have no idea.” She smiles weakly, looks up at the ceiling again as her foot twitches.

“You must miss him terribly,” Regina says. 

“We all have our scars,” Emma responds, and the darkness of the cave flickers in front of her eyes for a second.

Slowly, delicately, Regina extends a hand into the middle of the bed. The low light casts muted shadows over her fingers, the way they dig into the blankets before relaxing, turning up to face the world above.

Emma lets her neck fall to the side, and she takes Regina’s hand, and they lie together like parallel wounds as their arms bridge the gap between them and their nails cut elegant lines across each other’s wrists.

\--

Henry stays closer to them in the weeks following Daniel, shadows Regina during her day or comes along with Emma on her nightly patrols. He’s apologetic until Regina tells him there’s nothing to be sorry for, and then he’s just quiet, thinking so deeply he stumbles into tree branches and pebbles and barely notices. Emma thinks he must be trying to incorporate this new knowledge into his schema of the queen, and she thinks Regina must know it too, because she cringes as if under the beam of a lense whenever she’s caught in his contemplative gaze.

Emma gives Regina a wide berth, on the other hand, hesitant to infringe upon her constantly maintained space. She remembers Regina’s snappishness after her last display of vulnerability all too well and has no desire to repeat the experience, still smarting from rejection and hurt and defensiveness.

The thing is, Regina’s suffered so _much_. Emma tries not to think about it, and she knows comparing tragedies is impossible and that everyone has pain woven through the tapestry of their past, but it seems like Regina has been fated for more hardship than should be allowed in one lifetime, even if it is an eternal one.

There’s a righteous anger that boils in her stomach whenever she thinks of a younger Regina, afraid of her own parents and betrayed by her brothers and sisters and friends, alone and still somehow hopeful despite it all. Emma wants to unleash the Furies on those who have hurt the queen, make them feel every bit of what they’ve done to her until they’re begging for mercy, until they understand what true agony feels like.

She thinks: _Regina is bringing out the darkness in me_. She thinks: _I am being poisoned by this place_. She thinks: _I don’t care_.

(Her parents have fought so hard, every step of the way, to keep her from the darkness. There’s a certain guilty pleasure in succumbing to it.)

She won’t tell Regina these thoughts, of course, because she knows Regina would be horrified and beg her to leave, to stop. And even now, she’s not fully submersed--her morals keep her in the light, even as the voices in her head scream for vengeance. But it’s still worrying, mostly because she knows she _should_ be worried and can’t find a scrap of doubt within herself.

Maybe she’s sinking down to Regina’s level, but maybe that’s where she wants to be. Maybe that’s where she belongs--at the queen’s side. Her right hand of justice, her supporter, her equal.

It’s almost too easy to picture, which is why it can never happen. Except that sometimes Emma just watches Regina, and she forgets pomegranates and apple trees and inky black caves and bolts of electricity through brushed fingertips, and she _wants_. 

(She remembers hearing _well, a lot of things_ , and she understands so much more now than she ever could then.)

“Are you okay?” Mulan asks her one day.

“I don’t think I am,” she responds cautiously. “But I think we are. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” says Mulan, and she doesn’t ask again.

\--

Of course it all has to come to a head eventually, and of course the disaster would come unexpectedly, creep up on them when they’ve achieved some semblance of contentment at last.

They’re sitting in the garden one night, watching Henry act out the various Herculean tasks--he’s got a real theatrical gift, although Emma has no idea where it could have come from. He’s playing Hercules (unsurprisingly), and Regina (unsurprisingly) keeps pointing out tiny inconsistencies with the real story, laughing as he ignores her.

“Didn’t you try arrows before using your bare hands, O Hercules?” she asks teasingly. “How do you know that the skin of the Nemean Lion is impervious if you haven’t even attempted to shoot it with your bow?”

Henry huffs out an exasperated breath. “Because I just know,” he says, sticking out his tongue, and he continues grunting in feigned exertion as he squeezes the imaginary lion’s neck between his forearms before slowly kneeling and releasing his invisible burden in front of them.

“I have completed my task, Molorchus,” he announces solemnly. “Let us sacrifice this great beast together.”

Emma grins. She can’t help it. These moments are far and few between, the times when everyone is alright and they can just be together, and a surge of something that feels like happiness rises in her chest.

And then she looks past Henry, to the hill behind him, and as he turns to begin the next act of his production she watches someone--Hook, it looks like Hook, and how in Hades has he ended up here--stop in shock, their eyes widening.

“Fuck,” she mutters, and Regina follows the angle of her stare and echoes her, hand twitching as if she’s restraining herself from using magic. They both rise to their feet in horror. Henry quiets, his play forgotten.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Emma says again as Hook starts to run toward the Acheron, and she wants to follow him but she knows there’s no point, she’ll never catch up, and her breath is coming faster and faster because she now knows two things, two awful things.

The first is that Hook did come to the underworld, and Regina did trap him somewhere, and he’s escaped. This is not so bad in and of itself, because Emma doesn’t particularly like Hook but she has no desire for him to be trapped in a prison, either.

The second, though--the second is that Hook just saw Henry. And not just saw Henry, but recognized him, saw Bae’s face in the set of his eyes and the curve of his chin. The second is that Emma knows exactly where Hook will go next, because he has no reason to keep her secret and every reason to give it away.

“Fuck,” she says a third time, and as she meets Regina's panicked eyes she feels something ugly and fearful take root in her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for being so patient. this chapter was really hard to write for some reason, but i think i've finally found the groove of the story again. also thanks to [MurderouslyAdorkable](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderouslyAdorkable/pseuds/MurderouslyAdorkable/) as always for being such an awesome beta.


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